Kaimana RGB LED Board thread, RGB animations and more! SRK Tech Talk 2013 Product of the Year!

Tech Talk
882

Okay so, looked over the string again and it is all right, tried the single Kaimana J and its also not working.
I have been using these pre-made wiring harnesses - I’ll take a picture of how they line-up, maybe they’re the problem?

http://i.imgur.com/lHCEj6j.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/rraK3Za.png

UPDATE: I switched the blue and green wires on one half so the harness was mirrored, first J i tried it with didn’t take out the board LEDs but didn’t light up either HOWEVER the second one I tested did - sadly this does mean I have a defective Kaimana J. Thank you for the help, I’ve basically gotten it hammered out now.

UPDATE 2: Now I cannot get the Khameleon to go into Kaimana mode - it seems stuck on ps360 so I can’t modify the code. I’ve tried it plugged in the PS360 and removed, and both of those with the LEDs in and removed for a total of 4 combinations with no luck, any ideas?

883

@armi0024. @“Jasen Hicks” does this look like a dead board? I’m afraid you might have fried something with the crossed wires.

884

Got the board to switch over using K1 + Home - LEDs are working now but getting them to properly operate is very odd.
Using the brightcade freestick web kit code makes each button press activate 2 J’s ie:
K4 button -> K4 and K3 LED
K3 button -> K2 and K1 LED
K2 button -> P1 and P2 LED
K1 button -> P3 and P4 LED

Anyone have this problem before? I tried re-numbering both to the same index # as in K4 and K4B both 1 but that also had some problems.

Update: Even more confusing, now the PC will not recognize my stick (Unknown device) no matter what when plugged in using the neutrix ethernet to USB BUT when plugged in using the khameleon it will recognize and list it as PS360+ v1.4 in devices. Things are weirder by the minute.

885

The brightstick site has code for J2s and you’re using J LEDs. The J2s have two index-able LEDs andare coded separately. If you look at kaimana_custom.h there is a section called LED INDEX and each direction has two LEDs.

Example from the Hitbox version.



#define  LED_K1         2
#define  LED_K1_B       3
#define  LED_K2         4
#define  LED_K2_B       5
#define  LED_K3         6
#define  LED_K3_B       7
#define  LED_K4         8
#define  LED_K4_B       9
#define  LED_P4         10
#define  LED_P4_B       11
#define  LED_P3         12
#define  LED_P3_B       13
#define  LED_P2         14    
#define  LED_P2_B       15
#define  LED_P1         16
#define  LED_P1_B       17

I think you’d want the older code referenced earlier in this thread.

886

Thanks! With a bit of changes to the older code I got exactly what I wanted with the LEDs.
I even fixed the unkown device error, tried a handful of driver tricks, USB hubs, etc and none of it worked BUT rolling the majority of the RJ45-to-USB cord up in a loop and tying it so it stayed wound somehow fixed it - must be blocking noise better or something.
Thank you everyone.

887

Good day,

I would like to be able to toggle the LED lighting on and off on the fly, by using a toggle switch with a Kaimana LED Controller Board running with Power Zones 1 + 2 Bridged.

If one was to connect the common ground running from the DO harness (Data Out) of the Kaimana Board to a switch that can be toggled open/close, then to the DI point of the first LED along the chain; would this be a sensible means to toggle the lighting on and off on the board?

I would like to be able to avoid frying any components in the stick, or the Kaimana board and LED’s, so was just wondering whether cutting off ground would be an effective and safe way of having this feature on the fly (i.e. toggle switch). Or would this configuration just disable LED actuation on button press, while leaving buttons and stick on whatever “default” illumination they been setup to.

Alternatively should I instead run the VCC 5V power through the toggle switch, before it supplies the Kaimana Board itself? And in this way cut-off power to the board and hence LED’s.

Thanks

888

Great catch!

Do the 5v through the toogle, you can do it at the board level or betweem the board and the leds. Though at the board level will have better behaviour.

889

cross-posting from PAS thread.

i was messing w/ a neopixel ring to light up under the joystick hole ( @“Jasen Hicks” made a post about it a long time ago that i found and wanted to re-create).

inside of my new stick case that i’m using, there wasn’t enough clearance for me to mount the kaimana mini on top of brook UFB and close the case. so, i got a 2x10pin ribbon cable and connected it instead. then, once i got the neopixel ring connected after the 8th kaimana j2, it worked for a while, and made the whole stick turn off, presumably due to lack of power.

from what i’ve read before on PAS or other threads, kaimana mini should be able to power tons of LEDs right? not sure why this happened to me, maybe it’s the ribbon cable? it has a female connector on both ends, does that matter? if the neopixel ring indeed takes up too much power, i suppose using the 5V VCC screw terminal from the brook UFB (one used for optical joysticks that’s usually left empty) would be the solution?

890

Oh man, where’d you get them? It wasn’t just plug and play was it? Was thinking about getting some from Cable Mods

891

From a few years ago

This is the 16 pixel ring, that means 16 additional LEDs, they can’t be treated as 1 address, you’ll need to get creative with your code to output based on your directional inputs

i can help if you need

892

Amazon sells strips of them for cheap.

@DJ Divine - USB only supports 500mA. I found that a Kaimana Khameleon and PS360+ can inrush up to 472mA of current upon power up (all Lights lit, 23 LEDs). Add a few more and you are quickly going to overload the USB spec. That’s likely what happened here.

893

I found for some heavy duty lighting, you want to go with an auxiliary power supply just for the lights

894

I have an external power supply (albeit a cheap one) and will test this out!

895

thanks guys for all your responses.

@“Jasen Hicks” if 23 LEDs is max, my neopixel ring having 16 LEDs must’ve been why this happened.

EDIT: since the kaimana j2’s each have 2 LEDs, buttons alone are 16 LEDs already. i think i’ll reprogram them to only light 1 LED per button, and on the neopixel ring, only light up every other LED. that should do the trick, i think.

896

23 isn’t MAX necessarily, it just is a good bench mark for them to be at 100% power. Try dividing your color values by 10 (so 24 24 24 instead of 240 240 240) dimming them which will draw less amperage.

897

@“Jasen Hicks” @armi0024

I have a client with both Kaimana mini and Khameleon

After installing the Khameleon, I’d like to know more about the “additional” features originally teased at

I am familiar that the 32u4 chip when switch to arduino using the on board button does.

What does the othe MCU do? How can we access it?

898

The other MCU is not accessible. It only deals with the USB switching function of the Kaimana Khameleon.

899

Is it a straight passthrough?
If i have it connected to a brooks, can i access the brooks commands on boot?
Outside of the onboard switch, is there a soft key for switching between modes?

900

The USB defaults to the System PCB like the Brook or PS360+. It only switches to Kaimana mode when commanded to do so via the switch on board or pressing HOME+K1 at the same time. To prevent it from switching rapidly, it has a minute time out to prevent a switch after it has been switched once.

901

@JRDIBBS Sorry for the delay, my computer decided it didn’t want to USB any more, so had to fix that before i could test my joystick LED.

It seems to work! Joystick lights up, and changes upon directional input!

Using the following definitions and index:

Spoiler 


//ON BUTTON STATE
#define LED_JOY_COLOR_ON 255,0,255
#define LED_P1_COLOR_ON 0,0,0
#define LED_P2_COLOR_ON 0,0,0
#define LED_P3_COLOR_ON 0,0,0
#define LED_P4_COLOR_ON 0,0,0
#define LED_K1_COLOR_ON 0,0,0
#define LED_K2_COLOR_ON 0,0,0
#define LED_K3_COLOR_ON 0,0,0
#define LED_K4_COLOR_ON 0,0,0
#define LED_SELECT_COLOR_ON 0,0,0
#define LED_HOME_COLOR_ON 0,0,0
#define LED_START_COLOR_ON 0,0,0


//OFF BUTTON STATE 
#define LED_JOY_COLOR_OFF 0,255,0
#define LED_P1_COLOR_OFF 0,0,0
#define LED_P2_COLOR_OFF 0,0,0
#define LED_P3_COLOR_OFF 0,0,0
#define LED_P4_COLOR_OFF 0,0,0
#define LED_K1_COLOR_OFF 0,0,0
#define LED_K2_COLOR_OFF 0,0,0
#define LED_K3_COLOR_OFF 0,0,0
#define LED_K4_COLOR_OFF 0,0,0
#define LED_SELECT_COLOR_OFF 0,0,0
#define LED_HOME_COLOR_OFF 0,0,0
#define LED_START_COLOR_OFF 0,0,0

//LED INDEX
#define  LED_P4         0xFF
#define  LED_P4_B       0xFF
#define  LED_P3         0xFF
#define  LED_P3_B       0xFF
#define  LED_P2         0xFF    
#define  LED_P2_B       0xFF
#define  LED_P1         0xFF
#define  LED_P1_B       0xFF
#define  LED_JOY        0    
#define  LED_K4         0xFF        
#define  LED_K4_B       0xFF
#define  LED_K3         0xFF 
#define  LED_K3_B       0xFF
#define  LED_K2         0xFF
#define  LED_K2_B       0xFF
#define  LED_K1         0xFF
#define  LED_K1_B       0xFF
#define  LED_SELECT     0xFF
#define  LED_SELECT_B   0xFF
#define  LED_HOME       0xFF
#define  LED_HOME_B     0xFF
#define  LED_START      0xFF
#define  LED_START_B    0xFF
#define  LED_COUNT      0xFF

That is with only the joystick LED plugged in, the chain of J2s wasn’t even plugged in.

Interestingly, if I plug the chain of J2s into the adaptor and use the same code it doesn’t seem to play ball… Although everything should be off except the joystick. everything lights up =/

It would appear that the idle animation kicks in with everything, and then when I move the joystick the joystick LED works correctly, but all the button LEDs simply stop their idle animation where they are. Also when I move the joystick one of the LEDs on P1 activates as well. Finally if I interupt the idle animation with a button press, everything goes in techno epilepsy mode and starts flashing different colours while the button is pressed.

I’m getting more and more confused with all this =/