Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: stalemate on October 22, 2011, 06:14:56 pm
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I am coming up on the wiring part of my project and the RGB LED wiring is intimidating me a little because I don't know what I'm doing. :)
I want to keep my wiring as clean as possible and I'm attempting to only have DB25 cables and USB cables going in and out of my CP and doing it as cleanly as possible.
I have a 2 player panel with 8 RGB LED buttons for each player. So I have 2 LED Wiz devices. I'm planning to dedicate 1 LED Wiz to each player just to keep things consistent between players. I know neither of them will be used completely, but both will be wired exactly the same.
I want to keep both LED Wiz devices inside the cabinet if possible and run DB25 cables to the lights. Will this work? I have no idea if DB25 cables are appropriate for carrying the power to the lights or if I am asking for problems.
What I'm thinking is that with 1 DB25 I could run:
3 wires per button (RGB) x 8 buttons per player = 24
1 Common Anode +5v = 1
Total = 25
Is this right? I am referencing this diagram for the LED-Wiz documentation:
(https://img.skitch.com/20111023-nybf3ssjus2uthhd4cqad84h3s.jpg)
And is a DB25 cable appropriate to carry this?
I'm planning what to order and how many holes to make in my cp, so I want to understand if this plan is doable before I buy a bunch of DB25 breakout boards and frontx panels and junk (I'm trying to make the wiring as clean as possible).
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And is a DB25 cable appropriate to carry this?
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Your plan sound fine, just be careful on which DB25 cable you buy, some don't actually have 25 wires inside.
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While LEDs don't draw much juice (10-20mA is typical, "superbright" ones sometimes higher), multiply that by 24 and you're potentially at half an amp or more on the common with all the lights on. If you're using really bright LEDs you might push 1.5-2A.
The wires in your typical "DB25 cable" (usually made for PC parallel or serial port applications) are usually quite small: AWG26 or even AWG28 is popular. I wouldn't really recommend running half an amp on that, though it'll work. You might see some dimming issues if you were to e.g. flash all of one players' LEDs simultaneously while leaving the others on.
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Thanks guys.
I'm still up in the air on how much I want to do this. I'm also thinking about putting the LED Wiz devices in the CP and just running USB up there. I would still keep my ipac in the cab in case I ever wanted to make a swappable one, but I don't know that I would want to spend the money on LED buttons again so it might make sense to put the LED Wiz in the CP for now.