I’m looking to get some help and advice on customizing my Street Fighter 4 TE Round 2 fightstick. What I’m looking to do is to swap out the solid matted buttons with translucent ones so I can have some LED lights illuminating as I play. I’m also going to be changing the balltop to a different color, but will not be translucent. I have a PS3 & Xbox One, I want to play on both systems with just the one fightstick.
Here’s the parts that I’m looking at for the modding:
Paradise Arcade’s Sparky PWM SMD LED Controller PCB ($28.95)
Will these parts help me make my fightstick illuminate while pressing the buttons? Does the LED PCB need to be on the same board as the system recognizing PCB?
For visual aid on what I’m trying to do, here’s a link.
If all you want is light-up-on-press, you won’t need a LED controller. Instead you can get by with a Hex inverter and some resistors (depending if your LED units have any).
The only time you’ll need a LED controller is if you want fancier effects: fading in/out, screen-savers, etc.
Your Round 2 Fightstick already has all the wires and quick disconnects. You don’t need to re-buy them.
Dual-modding the stock PS3 PCB with an XBO PCB is a whole separate topic, there’s some info out there in the other threads for it.
I mentioned that you might not need the controller, and might be able to made do with a Hex inverter, but you didn’t ask how to hook it all up. Note that without a LED controller, you won’t get RGB effects either; all your button presses will be one single solid color.
The links to the buttons aren’t useful (we all know what Sanwas look like, feel like, smell like); the buttons themselves would never have resistors. It would be the LED units for the buttons. If they have resistors, you don’t need to add any externally. If they don’t, you’ll need to put some in-line with your signal from your Hex inverter. Looking at diagrams of the UILA S Flash, there are on-board resistors, but since I’ve never used them personally, I can’t guarantee the correctness of that statement.
Ah I see, sorry for the mixed up. I’m still new to the whole customizing fightsticks and all, but I do have a basic knowledge of tech-electrical related stuff. I did, however, ask a few other people on the net about connecting LED lights and such since the midst of waiting for a reply from this forum. I know someone suggested the Sparky PWM PCB, but I heard it really crappy and won’t work half the time. Is there another PCB I can use and how can I connect the lights with a hex inverter?
Oh I see, I know someone said to use scotch-locks and then attach the LED light wires to the Sparky PWM. I’m assuming they’d work the same with a Hex inverter, though the thing about the hex inverters that I know they have different areas that have always on, always off, and then it’s a “switch” of sort that only turns on when triggered. I’m not too acquainted with a hex inverter to actually use it, but if it’s a simple way of aligning the LED wires I’m all for it!
Forget scotch-locks and all that.
Either crimp quick-disconnects, or solder directly.
Here’s a diagram that I whipped up, 'cuz I had a few minutes to spare, and it’s good reference for anyone else who’ll want to do something like this:
You’ll need to repeat for the other 7 sets of “in-out” wires for the other 7 buttons. Note that one Hex inverter will only have enough connections for 6 pushbuttons; if you want to use 8 LEDs on 8 buttons, you’ll need a second Hex inverter.
You will also need to figure out if your RGB LED units are common anode or common cathode, and wire accordingly.
And like I said before, if your LED unit already has resistors on-board, skip the in-line resistor between the Hex inverter and the LED’s anode.
The Uilas don’t look like they have the anode and cathode, rather, they’re just wired with the different LED colors they provide. (I.E. - Red light has the red wire, blue light has the blue wire, etc.) So I assume the anode and cathode part doesn’t apply to them. If the Uilas don’t require resistors, could I just plug them into the hex inverters as shown in the diagram with no charge back (of electricity)?
I’m going to make all 8 buttons LED enable so I guess the Hex inverter is the way to go it seems.
ALL LEDs have anodes and cathodes. Electricity needs to go in one way, and leave the other way.
They are LABELLED as the colors they represent because it’s easier that way in terms of modding, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a set of LEDs with anodes and cathodes.
Basically, there are 4 wires coming out of the Uila: red, blue, green, and a common. There are 2 possibilities:
common-anode: the “out” from the Hex inverter" goes into the common line, and the colors (whichever combination you want to get the color you want) goes to Ground
common-cathode: the “out” from the Hex inverter" goes into the colors (whichever combination you want to get the color you want), and the common line goes to Ground
I have no idea which of the two the Uila is. Get it wrong, and you’ll likely burn and kill the LEDs on it.
Sorry, but this statement doesn’t really make sense.
If you’re still not really sure what’s going on, or are having trouble following my explanations, I’d highly recommend you going the other route with a LED Controller instead.
I would recommend either of the following two:
Remora (LED controller) with ArcEye3s (LEDs): can be purchased here
Kaimana (LED controller) with Kaimana Js (LEDs): can be purchased here
I explain it like this, all electricity in a DC or Direct Current system have a positive and negative polarity or flow, just like a normal battery.
Your Anode is your positive wire for your LED
Your Cathode is your Negative wire for your LED.
common-anode: all your anodes are tied together from a single voltage/power source
common-cathode: all the negative or ground connectors are tied together.
Uila RGB and Pele are common-anode RGB LEDs. Meaning you got one positive wire going in, and multiple negative wires, one for each color.
Think of a RGB LED as 3 LEDs (one of each color) tied together with the Anodes (positives) all connected to one (1) wire.
So the negatives or grounds are for each individual color.
I agree with FreadomGundam, if this is still over your head get the Remora, Sparky or Kaimana LED boards.
The Kaimana is the easiest board ever to wire up, as all the hard word is done for you.
