Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: Arnulf on March 26, 2021, 02:29:46 pm
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Today I received my PacLED64 board and I am a little bit confused.
on the product-page there are two pictures of (two kinds ?) of the board.
the colored picture (with heat sings) and a b/w one with wiring examples
https://www.ultimarc.com/output/led-and-output-controllers/pacled64/
Both pictures shows a +12V near the power connector.
The kit contains a adapter-connector far a HDD-power-connector. But this Adaopter used the +5V-cable.
This is correct, because a little bit later I can find "The PacLED64 is supplied with a power cable which plugs onto a spare PC power supply hard drive power connector. This supplied 5 volts to the board."
But why is there a +12V witten on the displayed board?
On my actual (bought) board the is neither +12V nor +5V. There stands only "LED POWER".
Next question is:
with the calcularing the current requirement I can read
"Current requirement is 0.02 amps X number of LEDs. Note each RGB LED counts as 3 LEDs."
But you have to know, that if you use RGB-LEDs, you only can drive 20 (maybe 21) of them.
Telling of 64 LEDs , you mean onle single colored LEDs.
Am I right?
For me it is OK, because I want to use single colored LEDs. But which voltage? 3V? 5V? 12V?
(12V because at the bottom of the site in the "PacLED64 vs PAC-Drive Comparison Chart " section there you can read "12V max Voltage")
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The PacLed can handle 5 or 12 volt according to discussion with Andy, the creator. The default is 5. If you want 12 you can just modify the adapter to pull from your computer 12 volt line instead of 5.
You are also correct that each output pin on the board controls 1 single color LED. So you get 64 single color leds, or 21 rgb leds per board (you can have multiple boards). Voltage requirements depends on the leds you are using. Any I've seen from arcade part vendors are 5 or 12. Even if they are rated for 12, you can always run them at 5 which won't be quite as bright. That should extend their life more too. You shouldn't run a 5v light at 12 though. I think the idea behind the board was to make it require no real thought to get things working. Buy a button with a led inside and plug it in. No need to worry about load calculations with 1 led color per pin.
It should probably be noted that the pacLED isn't geared to drive LED strips. He has a Nano board for that.