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What is the point of lighting your controls?

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Ginsu Victim:

--- Quote from: arzoo on September 25, 2008, 09:10:27 pm ---OR put a ring of LEDs around the programmable joystick(s) and have only the correct directions light up - that would be so cool!

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Which is how I was looking at doing it.

shmokes:
I like the idea of lighting only the buttons that are used for a given game.  From a utility perspective, that is awesome.  But I kind of hate the look.  Even when done reasonably well, I think they look gaudy and Christmas-treeish, especially the attract-modes people create.  More like repulse-mode, IMO (except the light circling Franco's stick which is admittedly cool looking).  I don't think it's a matter of being tied down to classic style vs. modern.  I'm only 30 years old and my control panels are brushed aluminum and so is my t-molding.  Not very vintage.  I think I hesitate to light my control panel for the same reason I think New York and San Francisco are far more beautiful than Las Vegas.  Sometimes less is more.

Franco B:

--- Quote from: arzoo on September 25, 2008, 09:10:27 pm ---
I'm not exactly sure what the question is, but LEDBlinky can light LEDs to indicate the joystick directions based on the game. You could do it one of two ways - have a bunch of LEDs labeled 2-way, 4-way, 8-way, etc. OR put a ring of LEDs around the programmable joystick(s) and have only the correct directions light up - that would be so cool!

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Excellent :)


--- Quote from: Ginsu Victim on September 25, 2008, 11:42:05 pm ---Which is how I was looking at doing it.

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Which is what im doing ;)


--- Quote from: Franco B on January 23, 2008, 07:56:26 pm ---I also drilled the holes for the Plexiglas tubes (5mm or so length) to be backlit by LEDs. I was expecting the plexiglass rod to be somewhere close to 5mm in diameter but it turns out in fact that it is 5.25mm which is a pain in the ass as the diameter of the LEDs s 4.9mm and so there is no real viable option in between. I ended up drilling the holes 5.2mm and the plexiglass tapped in nicely but obviously the LEDs were baggy. I wanted both to be a nice tight fit (without glue etc) so I have come up with a better idea.

I am going to insert 10mm plexi rod into the CP but have a hole to push fit the LEDs from the other side of the CP, this cross section will give you an idea:



I am going to have vinyl overlay over the top of the CP. I am going to get arrows printed on the overlay and then I will cut them out of the vinyl, revealing the plexi beneath:



(Imagine the dotted line is the hidden plexi circumference and the arrrow is the cut out section)

It should then look something like this once arrayed round the joystick:



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I ended up drilling the through hole 4.9mm and I used a 10mm slot drill and circle interpolating the hole to suit the 10.25mm polycarb inserts.




Ginsu Victim:
Thanks. Basically what I was thinking.

Loafmeister:

--- Quote from: cadmium on September 24, 2008, 04:32:25 pm ---
--- Quote from: Ginsu Victim on September 24, 2008, 04:18:57 pm ---CPwizard

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Seconding this. I have mine set to show an image of the active controls on my panel during pause.

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I've been meaning to give it a try, is it easy to setup? Thanks for the "push" guys :).

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