LEDBlinky not fading between controls.

[reehmicks]

Hi.  I've been playing with LEDBlinky trying to get it configured for my machine.  I've run into an issue, I think.

I'm using 2 PacLED64s to control my button LEDs.

When I switch between games (in this case MAME), all of the control panel lights are turned off, then the newly selected game lights are turned on.  This seems to be the way it works (as I've seen in videos).

But, while troubleshooting another problem, I had to disconnect the PacLED64 from the PC and reconnect it.  When I did this (while LedBlinky was still loaded), my transitions from game to game when from on - off - on to on fade to on.  Basically instead of turning off the lights in between games, it faded.

I actually like this better.  The problem is I can't seem to get it to stay like this.  If I stop and restart LedBlinky, it seems to reset back to the on - off - on method.  Is this by design, and is there any way I can change this to be the other way?

I've included a video (I hope) that better explains the issue.  The left side of the panel (and trackball) is the PacLed that was unplugged while LedBlinky was loaded.  The right side was plugged in before LedBlinky was started.

Sorry about some of the missing LEDs for the left side.  That's the issue I'm trying to track down.. They just stop working randomly..

I also have a question about pre-loading the MAME games.. I know it's a feature, but it doesn't seem to be working for me.  I'll get to that question later. 

[arzoo]

Hi,
When LEDBlinky loads the PacLED64 controller it clears out the local animations. So my guess is when you disconnected and then reconnected the controller (without restarting LEDBlinky), the controller reverted back to it's built-in animation. This is just a guess. Also, LEDBlinky does not really support hot-swapping of the LED controllers.

[reehmicks]

Thanks for the response.

I shoulda have mentioned this in my earlier post.. The video I attached wasn't of the startup of the PacLEDs, it was a batch file running LEDBlinky commands with a pause in between them.

Basically (I don't have the exact script in front of me so the parameters may be wrong.)

Code: [Select]

:loop
LEDBlinky 005
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 2000  (this is just a 2 second pause)
LEDBlinky kinst
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 2000
LEDBlinky slug
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 2000
goto loop

The transitions in the video are when the batch file is running LEDBlinky.

I also realize that unplugging and plugging in the cables is unsupported.  I really hope I don't have to do anything like that in my machine, Heh.

I guess what I was looking for was that if there was anyway to actually implement that fading type functionality.  Or I guess if it's part of the PacLED, then a feature to stop 'disabling/resetting' it.

Thanks.

[arzoo]

Sorry but LEDBlinky doesn't have the ability to "fade on" an LED. You can create fades and color transitions using the animation editor but I'm not sure that's what you're trying to achieve.

[reehmicks]

I did some more research on this, and I think I know what is happening (or not happening).

My question is, when controlling a PacLED64, do you do anything with the Pac64SetLEDFadeTime() function?  Do you set it to zero, set it a value, or not do anything with it at all?

If you set it to 0 or not at all, can you give us (me) the option to set it to something? (even if it's just in the ini).

If you do set it to something, then why isn't it working on my PC? 

If not, I think I may have a workaround with an AHK script, it just seems kludgy..

Sorry for beating a dead horse, I just think it would make LEDBlinky better if it supported some of the native features of the LED controllers.

[arzoo]

I did some more research on this, and I think I know what is happening (or not happening).

My question is, when controlling a PacLED64, do you do anything with the Pac64SetLEDFadeTime() function?  Do you set it to zero, set it a value, or not do anything with it at all?

If you set it to 0 or not at all, can you give us (me) the option to set it to something? (even if it's just in the ini).

If you do set it to something, then why isn't it working on my PC? 

If not, I think I may have a workaround with an AHK script, it just seems kludgy..

Sorry for beating a dead horse, I just think it would make LEDBlinky better if it supported some of the native features of the LED controllers.

LEDBlinky sets the fade time to 0 at startup. It's possible I could allow this value to be set via the ini but it would be a one shot deal - the same fade value would be used for all PacLED64 on/off commands. I'm not sure how this would effect animations, flashing, or other LEDBlinky features. I'd have to do some testing.

Early on I considered supporting the unique features of each controller but since LEDBlinky abstracts all the different types of hardware (any and all can be used at the same time), I had to stick with a common set of features.