Currently LIM is naked/unassembled. But this will change very soon.
LIM protects your PCB against your LED Mods and takes care about bullet proof signals. But this is nothing new in this thread. Leave me a message if you’re interested.
Hey, just wanted to let anyone who may be nervous about drilling into the button to place the LED inside that I found it actually isn’t necessary. The little notches in the PS-14-KN microswitches are actually big enough to slide LED leads through and still be able to place the plunger inside without affecting the feel of the buttons. Didn’t see that mentioned in the topic, figured I’d pass the info along.
I’m just about to start the wiring for the stick I’m building, and I just wanted to make sure I understood some things about these LED circuits.
Is there a reason the diagrams on the first page include a switch between the battery and the VCC on the inverter? I’m planning on powering mine with the PCB, and I was going to leave out the switch, because I can’t imagine ever wanting to turn them off. If I leave the controller plugged into the XBox, though, will all the lights be on constantly, even when the XBox is off?
Also, is there any reason not to put an “always-on” green LED behind my XBox button? The only problem with it that I can think of is that the LED would burn out–do they have a long enough lifetime if they’re constantly on?
Thanks to a lot of the posters in this thread–its a great learning tool! I’ll post pics when I’m finally finished. Building the case took a lot longer than I thought, but it’s already a very pretty-looking joystick even before the LEDs are ready. I’m getting excited!
edit: Also, the search function isn’t working real well and I can’t find the answer: Why am I doing the inverter method rather than wiring the LED directly to the signal wire?
I built a prototype circuit yesterday with the hex inverter and couldn’t get it to work properly. I’m pretty sure it was just a broken connection somewhere, though–I’m TERRIBLE at soldering to that tiny little breadboard. How on earth do you guys get such tiny, precise little joints?
Also, I rigged up one of the LEDs with the simpler non-inverter circuit, and it wasn’t nearly as bright as I wanted it, with a 220 ohm resistor. Is it safe to go lower than 220? I’m not sure why it was so dim. I’ve seen PCB-powered LED sticks that are really bright.
Hey guys, hoping to find a little help/clarification here.
I haven’t so much as touched electronics for ages with the exception of component swapping on the many computers I’ve had over the years. I thought it might be a good exercise to make a concept drawing of the switchless circuit on a protoboard. So…
I have since put the circuit together on the board, and it seems to work as intended, except for one detail. For testing purposes, I have a regulated power supply running at 4.5v as proxy for the cthulhu’s Vcc and button outputs, and the second power source is 3 AA batteries and switched (on-off).
My question: when the cthulhu proxy is powered up, the LEDs activate on button press regardless of the on/off position of the battery source…I’m assuming I’ve missed on the wiring somewhere. Would anyone care to shed some light?
Alright, it was in fact a resistor that wasn’t in the right place on the physical circuit. Now, I recall seeing in the thread that the V+ of the battery should connect to the Vcc of the controller pcb. I did that…now, I noticed that the LEDs activate on button press even when the controller isn’t plugged into the console and multimeter shows a current of about 1.5mA…is this normal?
I made this schematic hoping if some of you may notice anything wrong with it.
I am wanting to get 8 buttons working on a MS Wireless common ground working, and yes the triggers too. I was thinking of using seperate power sources for both, but know nothing about the seperate common line for the triggers. Has this been attempted before?
The only problem I see is that the switch you have planned may not shut off the LEDs. This has been tried and it failed. You need to use additional diodes. There is a diagram back in this thread somewhere showing how to wire up for an on/off switch.
