Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: screaming on February 11, 2004, 08:57:53 am
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Hello all,
I'm hoping some of you electronic geniouses can help me out here..
I'm trying to see how hard it would be to get my reject buttons and possibly my marquee light to blink randomly, similar to what you might see on TV when they're depicting an old haunted amusement park with an arcade.
Some ideas I've brainstormed:
- Get/Make some kind of parallel/serial adapter to allow my lights to be blinked on and off using some kind of homebrew software
- Attach the lights to work off my Scroll Lock light and use some kind of homebrew software to control the scroll lock light, thereby controlling the other lights.
- Hack one of those boxes that comes attached to some christmas lights and attach it to the other lights in the arcade cabinet.
There are some questions I would have with these ideas though, like, since the marquee light plugs directly into the wall and the reject button lights work off a connector off the PSU on the computer, how do I control them both so they blink at the same time? Would I run into other problems like the marquee light not coming on right away and 'lagging behind' the 'blink'?
I imagine the blink would get kind of annoying, so I would like for a way to turn it off too.. It's more for effect anyway (since it *is* the Ghost Arcade, afterall), but I'd invest some money into getting it to work..
/Steve
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Here's something a little different, but very cool for your coin door....
http://www.cowlacious.com/halloween_products_and_kits-old.htm#Fading Eyes
Do you really want the marquee to blink? Your not using a flourescent fixture are you?
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Take a look at The Asynchronous Lamp Flickerer (http://www.phantasmechanics.com/alf.html)
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You could also look into the Battery Lamp Flickerer (http://hauntmasterproducts.com/3.html), but I don't think it camn power a light bigenough for you marquee.
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Here's something a little different, but very cool for your coin door....
http://www.cowlacious.com/halloween_products_and_kits-old.htm#Fading Eyes
Wow, that is totally cool. I love the other peojects on his page too.. Oh, the possibilities!
BTW, I think if I ever trick-or-treated at his house when I was a kid I would be scarred for life and never want to leave the house again! Have you seen his Halloween page?
Do you really want the marquee to blink? Your not using a flourescent fixture are you?
I am.. What are the problems associated with that? Is there something else I could use to mitigate them?
I just thought of another way of describing what I want to do, and maybe this will spur some ideas too.. You know when you first turn on the florescent light and it flickers for a little bit while it gets going? And sometimes when those bulbs get old they flicker like that a lot? That's what I want, but I want it for my coin door reject buttons (so it gives that 'haunted' feeling) and I want to be able to shut it off (<-- that's important).
/Steve
Edit: Shoulda hit preview first!
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You could also look into the Battery Lamp Flickerer (http://hauntmasterproducts.com/3.html), but I don't think it camn power a light bigenough for you marquee.
After viewing the demo, this seems pretty close to what I what I need! I'm not an electrical engineer, but I don't think it will work with AC stuff?
/S
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Take a look at The Asynchronous Lamp Flickerer (http://www.phantasmechanics.com/alf.html)
Did I mention I'm not an electrical engineer? :) This seems more my style:
http://www.phantasmechanics.com/fpilot.html
Low-tech, but I can see how it would work... I just don't know what the end effect will look like (there's no demo or anything), but it seems cheap enough to give it a shot.
Thanks for the link!
/Steve
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I am.. What are the problems associated with that? Is there something else I could use to mitigate them?
I'm not an expert either, but using incandescent controls on a flourescent fixture is for the most part, a no-no.
If I was you, I'd go with standard light bulbs in the marquee if you want them to flicker, but diffuse the light so that it is "softer" and more like a flourescent bulb.
OR, I believe that there are cold cathode lights available that flash to the music. If you were to get one or two of those behind your marquee, that would work. Then get a .wav file of thunder, and have it play when the machine is not in use. The marquee could flash to the thunder claps. Or if you wire it so that the contacts are normally closed, the light would flash OFF when the noise is ON leaving the marquee lit when the audio is off.
I'm thinking of going with the fading eyes circuit myself, as well as light up translucent buttons and a cold cathode here and there. I'm going to try to keep the effects subtle though. I don't want them to make the machine look gaudy.
Good luck. Love your animated .gif
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Good luck. Love your animated .gif
Doh! I forgot to include that file when I moved to my new host. Thanks for reminding me!
Thanks for your help too.. I have a bunch of ideas now that I need to think over and see how I'm going to apply them.
/Steve
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BTW, I think if I ever trick-or-treated at his house when I was a kid I would be scarred for life and never want to leave the house again! Have you seen his Halloween page?
Yes, I have seen his Halloween Page.
I am a huge Halloween Nut myself. http://erikruud.freeservers.com/halloween/ekker.htm
I have met quite a few of the Halloween prop guys and been to the big Halloween Prop and Costume convention in Chicago.
I have built my own fading eyes circuit from plans on the web. They are coll for some stuff, but I don't think they will give the haunted flicker that you want.
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I got a pair of those cowlacious ones a while ago. Here's a crummy vid of them in my reject buttons. Still trying to figure out how to use them for a "free play when reject buttons flashing" kind of thing.
http://www.upup.us/log/glow.avi
(divx)
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I got a pair of those cowlacious ones a while ago. Here's a crummy vid of them in my reject buttons.
Wow, that is a cool effect. If I don't get my 'haunted blinky lights' going, I'm definitely going to consider this!
Still trying to figure out how to use them for a "free play when reject buttons flashing" kind of thing.
Would just installing a relay in the line for the switch (I assume your 'free play' is activated by a toggle switch) work?
/Steve
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Take a look at this one:
http://www.terrorbydesign.com/mainframe.html
Click on FX tools III, then scroll down to EyeFX.
I can vouch for the quality of the stuff on the Terror By Design site. I've known Denny for years.
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Click on FX tools III, then scroll down to EyeFX.
Very nice.
How well it will run on a PC 12 volt supply is the big question....
I guess that you could always plug a 9 or 6 volt DC adapter into the powerbar.
A fade-in fade-out effect under a blue translucent trackball would be killer.
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Yes, you would need a DC adapter for it, or build a 9volt voltage regulator that take power off the 12 volt pc supply.
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Yes, you would need a DC adapter for it, or build a 9volt voltage regulator that take power off the 12 volt pc supply.
The site also states that it will run on 4 AA batteries. (6 volts)
How about the PC 5 VDC supply?
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Take a look at this one:
http://www.terrorbydesign.com/mainframe.html
Click on FX tools III, then scroll down to EyeFX.
I can vouch for the quality of the stuff on the Terror By Design site. I've known Denny for years.
That seems pretty cool too (and cheap!)! I wonder if the "blink" function will work? How do you guys think it would work with the marquee light assuming I got some incandecent lights? Would it just be a matter of putting this thing on the end of a string of lights?
/Steve
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It is designed for LED's. I doubt that the it could handle the amps required to drive a string of lights.