Purplecrayons gs on these led boards. You have def made my stick look badass thanxs 2 gummowned advice.
Cool! Post some pictures and show off your rig!
I dunno how I was ever able to solder all this time without a flux pen! It made soldering SMT leds 100x easier and cleaner. I highly recommend the Chemtronics CW-8400… No clean, and lead free…
I still need to spring for flux, to this day I’ve never used it. I keep hearing it will make my life easier… and I understand why, but I guess I’m too damn hard-headed.
Yeah me too… Stubborn using my dad’s soldering iron, which is older than i am. And I have a brand new one sitting in a box cause for some reason i could not tin the tip… the solder would ball and fall off as soon as it touched the tip…
When i first soldered the LEDs on arc-eye, i had a problem sometimes when putting too much solder… the solder would stick to each other in between the legs (short circuiting it)… then I would have to clean and fix it… with flux, it never happens anymore… the solder always pools perfectly…
Hey guys. I jus read over the discussion on how the arc-eye could light up on button press and rumble and i was curious if this method could work another way… Basically have it light up continually blue and then on button press green. Now with that said though, if its possible, how would the grounds work because theres only one ground spot labeled “>” on the arc-eye. Are there other ground spots that we can access? and if there are how do u work with it?
http://bencao74.blogspot.com/2009/12/pink-bullets-illumination.html
http://bencao74.blogspot.com/2009/11/button-led-changing-color-mod.html
I’m meaning to type some more.
But cannot right now.
Yup easy to do. I did something very similar in my coffee table. You solder the LEDs as common anode (power) instead of common ground… so the “v” on the prototype board becomes power… “B” on the board becomes ground for blue, and same with “G” for green and “R” for red… in fact, prototypes are labeled to run this way… so in your case, ground for blue would be wired to a switch, green or red ground can be hooked up to the button terminal shared with the signal line of the cthulu / dualstrike / any CG controller
Only issue now is power consumption… because now you are activating more than one primary color per LED… for example, lets assume in addition to blue that you want to use either green or red (but not both) on button press… so 2 led x 2 colors x 20ma = 80ma of current consumed per button… x8 buttons = 640ma and you’re over the limit of what USB can handle at 500ma (large capacity battery users won’t have this problem)… so to resolve this, you have two choices…
- install only one of the 2 leds per arc-eye (button lighting may not look as even)
- install stronger resistors so arc-eye will run at 10am per LED per color, which brings your maximum power consumption per button down to 40ma… x 8 buttons = 320ma max… which leaves a safe amount left for the controller…
So due to limitations of USB current, you have to make a sacrifice to get what you are describing… my arcade table uses AC adapter, so i’m not limited by USB… clear as mud?
Hmmm, ok. I get the gist of what your sayin (im still kinda new to all this eletrical stuff so please excuse my ignorance), so if i were to go with option 2 and install a resistor to the wire leading to “v” on an arc-eye, what # ohm would u recommend? On hand i have some 1/8 W 220 ohm resistors, wud those work? At the same time though, wud this affect the brightness of the arc eye cuz i wud hate to lose the almighty distracting power these things give off (luv the brightness of ur Gouken stick). Another question i wud like to throw out there, since it was mentioned, has to do with the usb current limitations that u mentioned. In my grandiose plan for a 360 TE mod that ill be dual modding with a ChImp, i of course will be adding these arc-eyes but at the same time i want to add a basic light up on activation button mod on the start and selct buttons w/ 5mm leds (since the arc eyes cant fit into 24mm buttons) and as well put one 3mm led in the joystick (non activation, just lit up the whole time). Having put all that in a nutshell how much further would this mess with the current consumption and what do u suggest to make this plan work (like certain resistors, lots of terminal strips, etc.)? I know im crazy making this super night brite of a stick but i would love for this to work out.
I’d like to see this tested o-o
Perfectly fine. I’m a novice, so i appreciate answers myself =)
No need for a resistor on the wire leading to “v” on the arc-eye. The board already holds all the resistors you need and you will be provided resistors to run everything at 20ma. The resistors you use for blue/green are the same (red is different value). I’m planning on doing more testing on power consumption / resistor values this week. I’ll post back here with my findings.
Here is the layout of the new arc-eye that you will get. Its marked for common ground (opposite of the prototype, marked for common power). So for common power, you will install the LED with the notch facing up and right. Resistor spots marked “R” are for red, “B” are for blue, “G” for green. But if you change to common power, resistors for R must be soldered into B, and resistors for B must be soldered into the spots marked R (because orientation of LED has changed). The “eye” marks where the common connection is (ground or power depending on orientation of LED).
It will still be bright even at 20% less current running at 16ma. But it all depends on power consumption…
That depends on what current your led will eat. You need a resistor wired to that for sure. Toodles is conscientious with power consumption so mcthulu probably won’t be high, or much different than a cthulu. I will have some power consumption numbers for cthulu and TE sticks this weekend. Then we’ll have a better idea of what we have to work with…
You can use WWW.LEDCALC.COM to see what resistor you need for your LEDs.
In a worst case scenario, if your joystick draws too much power, the usb port will simply cut off the power. It won’t blow up or fry or anything :bgrin:
Here is a config diagram which i hope clears things up. Not as nice as 32teeth’s diagrams lol…
Bencao84, 32teeth, does this look about right to you?
http://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss240/purplearms/Arc-EyeConfig.jpg
So , pinned the stuff on breadboard together-
[media=youtube]hh3sjGJmryM[/media]
Default is green, on button press plus blue -> turquoise
[media=youtube]HaF5h63sgNA[/media]
Default is red, on button press plus blue -> pink
[media=youtube]SvLECooUZUI[/media]
Default is green, on button press red and blue -> white
[media=youtube]O4uvZsu_d80[/media]
Default is green, plus red on button press is yellow
Have fun with this stuff…
more fun with leds
i think this was mentioned earlier for LED combinations based on buttons pressed
i just picked up some 74HC238 (3-8 line decoders)
http://static.sparkfun.com/images/products/09577-01_i_ma.jpg
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9577
i will be using 2 of these for the time being to produce this result
this is for a single row (punches or kicks)
1 button = blue
2 buttons (any combo) = green
3 buttons = red
the 74HC238 is great for this application as it reads 3 separate inputs and registers 8 possible outputs (in this case you only need 7)
i tested this theory on an arduino and breadboard combo and SUCCESS… …now i just have to implement this with the ArcEye / Cthulhu combo, which should be difficult, just a PoA for wire organization.
i only have the DiP version of the 74HC238 but there are SMD versions of this
i will upload some pics when i get home
next steps
use a an ‘And Gate’ chip to color mix for throw, focus & taunt
Pretty colors.
@32teeth wow thats an original idea…
Taking a quick peek at the datasheet, it seems to only allow 20ma diode current, 50ma for vcc / ground? Doesn’t seem enough to handle 7 LEDs @ 20ma?
yeah the result of mixing the colors was great. I never expected such even lightning and such clear colors. Yellow, Pink and even white mixing was no problem…
@purplearms
the intention would be that each 74HC238 would only deal with 3 buttons, that being said would, maximum light up (all 3 kicks for example) would constitute of 6 (all red) LEDs total (2 per ArcEye) or am i missing something?
mind you i have only been playing on the breadboard with 3.3V 20mA RGB LEDs
sure, should do the job. What do you think about the MAx 7219. Your possiblities are much larger with this one… This one wants Common Cathode…
Yes, the even light is great.
I see the translucent button caps are working well lol 
yeah 6 LEDs total at 20ma = 120ma of current consumption if all of them are activated at once… I could be wrong, but the datasheet seems to indicate ground cannot handle more than 50ma? chip may not be able to handle so much current by the looks of it… but the dream is not dead… if you use the 74HC238 output to signal a switching NPN (which i think takes active high as a signal… PNP takes active low) transistor per led color to provide power to the LED…
lots of transistors, but there are companies that manufacturer low cost PCB prototypes of 3 or 4 that will make it easier for you… i’ll have to try to find the links…