Just got a FGWidget board and want to hook it up to some rollies with Uila LED Pads. Has anyone have experience with these? Looking to just get 6 blue LED buttons and 2 yellow LED buttons from the RGB pads for a TE stick with a ChimpSMD
Also I have a RGB led stick that uses 5V and came with a resistor. Direction: red wire to +5v and black wire to GND
Here my question.
should I connect each pair of holes instead of the resistor rays on the FGWidget?
how to get yellow from Uila RGB Pad?
do I use the resistor that came with the stick? Where do I solder the red and black on the FGWidget? I’m thinking it is stick out for red and don’t know about ground.
If you mean short them with a piece of wire instead of the resistor arrays, yes. Since you have resistors on the LED insert, there’s no need for one on the controller board.
Red + Green = Yellow. The Uila inserts look like they have a common anode setup; you would want to connect the *_OUT screw terminal from the FGW LED Controller to the ‘+’ part of the Ulia insert, and connect a wire from each of the R, G, or B points for the color you want. So for the ones you want to be Red, connect R to ground and leave the G and B unconnected. For the ones you want to be yellow, connect R and G to ground and leave B unconnected.
The stick questions are a little weird because I don’t know anything about what’s in it. If there is just a red a black wire, then I expect the RGB will cycle through colors on it’s own. You should connect the black wire to Ground and connect the red wire to either the STICK_OUT point on the LED Controller, or to power (VCC screw terminal). Connecting it to VCC will make the stick LED always on, and connecting it to STICK_OUT will make it activate when the stick is not in neutral. Either way, YES, use the resistor that came with the stick.
wow Toodles thanks for the quick response and information. You are right, the Stick RGB dose cycle through the colors. It is just the information I’m looking for. Thanks again for the great products and support behind it.
If it cycles through the colors, you would probably be best wiring the red wire to a VCC screw terminal so its always on and cycling. I guess I’m saying because of how the STICK_OUT power is constantly turning off and on, I don’t know if the stick will properly change colors or stick with the same color because its constantly being power cycled. If you’re cool with it always being on, wiring it to VCC will definitely work, and save you from having to wiring the directions to the LED Controller.
Toodles is correct; those LED boards are common anode. I wired up a set and used the resistors on the FGWidget and it’s still plenty bright enough shining through pearl buttons, so you should be fine either way
I have another question if I want it to work for tournament mode do I have to solder to stick_out? So there is no way to have it on all the time with tournament mode I assume if I solder to VCC.
If its connect to VCC, it will always be on, even if the LED Controller is disabled in tournament mode. Connecting it to VCC and ground means it is not connected at all to the LED controller.
Couple (silly) questions, but I’m a bit new to electronics.
Why is the hex inverter needed in the original example, if it wasn’t there would the buttons stay lit until pressed?
Are the batteries needed? Could the PCB vcc from the power the LEDs?
When doing something like this, are there any specific mistakes that could cause component damage to really watch out for?
the answer to that is yes
the answer to your second question is no
the answer to your third question is yes
I don’t know the answer to your fourth question
I’m trying to setup 6 Arc Eyes on a FGWidget LED Board, 5V Step up and a PS2 pad.
I have all the arc eyes installed using common ground config. All the grounds are chained together.
Original Setup:
Pad 3.3V to input of step up.
Pad VCC ground to the GND of the step up.
FGWidget VCC to 5V output on the step up.
FGWidget ground to a random button common ground.
6 buttons going into the IN_* of FGWidget.
6 wires coming out of FGWidget’s OUT_* to the red input of the Arc Eyes.
Arc Eyes GND going to a random button common ground.
The problem I’m facing is that even though the LED’s are lighting up correctly, I cannot get any button input to go to the PS2. Nothing functions correctly.
Sometimes, I would get buttons functioning without any lights but any button pressed will also press the “UP” direction of the pad. I solved this by disconnecting both the VCC and GND from the FDWidget. If only GND was connected, the problem would still persist. I’m assuming it doesn’t like the GND I’m giving it?
So the buttons light up as they should when a button is pressed, including going into setup mode? Sounds like the arc-eyes and led controller are working alright and the problem may be the ps2 pad. Post up some pics of the PS2 pad pcb you’re using. I’m a little worried because the only ps2 pad I know of is the dualshock 2, which isn’t exactly common ground.
So I posted this question in another, older thread, but no dice, so I’ll give it a try here…
I’m about to do an LED mod with KNserts and the FGWidget. The one thing that’s really bothering me is the best method of daisy chaining the grounds; for some reason, I’m having a tough time wrapping my head around the best way to do it. The stuff I’ve seen in the thread has the ground for the LED going to the ground of the button, which is fine, until the next step…the next wire needs to go to either the ground of the next button or the ground of the next LED, right? Which means the ground of the KNsert is going to need two wires soldered to it? My only experience with daisy chaining so far has used QDs, which don’t seem like they’re really going to work here.
So what do I need to do to make this simple? Solder the LED ground wires together in the middle and use heat shrink, and just daisy chain it separately from the buttons? Use some kind of ground terminal block? I’m kind of lost here, and I feel stupid because this is probably Electronics 101. Even a picture of a stick wired like mine (ChImp + FGwidget + KNserts) would be great.
Aha! Awesome. I knew that would work circuit-wise, my only concern was cramming 3 wires into a QD. Sweet. This makes things a whole lot easier for me. Thank you JDM, you are a pillar of the community. o7
Find some Male .110 quick disconnects. I get them from a local electronics supply store so I don’t know where you can get them. I would do it like this.
Edit: Jdm’s pic is much, much cleaner, but if you plan to change a button my ugly way makes it easier.
Edit2: I forgot to draw this but I also put heat shring tubing over the Ground female Quick Disconnect to not short anything when you close the case.
