MULT LEDWIZ

[jbrown]

New to the forum - trying to finish my MAME Machine. Here's what I'm making - lighted 4 player control panel - I wanted to use the LEDWIZ to control the lighting. As everyone knows - if you use the RGB board you need to use 3 inputs for each button, i have 41 lighted buttons - thats 123 inputs with 32 on each board, I need 4 boards? I emails groovegamegear and they said my question were software issues -

So these are my questions - how can you use all 32 imputs, because when you start to wire them, you are left with 2 inputs on the first board, needing 3 per button, can i set device #1 to use these 2 LEDs and use devide #2 for the 3rd, if so how? will the software know how to control one button over 2 boards?

question #2 - what does "always on" do? in the simulation i can't get it to light my buttons. I want to set the buttons up so player #1 is red and #2 is blue and so-on, however i would like the buttons so only come on when need in a game. do i set the color on the 1st screen and use always on?

question #3 - keycode? - is this what i use to make the buttons work right with games? is this how i assign the "Pause" and "Exit" Buttons?

CAN ANYONE HELP?

[dwight]

Question 1 - Each of your buttons will have to be on a single board as LCDPlugin assumes a given button will be on the same ID. On the "LED Input" tab of LCDPlugin, you'll set your device the LEDWiz, type to RGB, ID to the ID of the LEDwiz board you are configuring (e.g. 1 for the first board, 2 for the second etc), and finally set RGB to the input numbers you have wired the LED to the LEDWiz board (e.g. R=1, G=2, B=3 would mean the current button you are configring is wired to inputs 1, 2, and 3 on the LEDWiz board, or R=30, G=29, B=28 would mean the LED is connected to inputs 30, 29, and 28 on the LEDWiz board). And herein lies your challenge - there is currently no setting to allow you to use two or more LEDWiz boards for a single button. You can have different buttons on different boards, just not the same button connected to inputs on different boards.

Question 2 - "Always On" on the "Profile Editor" Tab ("Always Active") means that the button you are looking at will always be lit up, it won't turn off when you start an emulator or change menus. Before setting this you will first need to setup the correct ID and input number in the LCDPlugin, then when you select "State" and "Always Active" the button will light up. "Always Acrive" is useful for a start button, or perhaps an "Insert Coin" button, or maybe an "Exit" button. BTW - "State" is the option to tick that means turn the LED on for the specific profile you are configuring. Not ticking state means the LED remains OFF when the the profile you are working with is selected.

Question 2 - "...I want to set the buttons up so player #1 is red and #2 is blue and so-on" - You don't need RGB LEDs and three inputs if you want buttons to be just one colour. Just hook up the Blue or Red wire from the LED to only one of the inputs on the LEDWiz and when activated, it will always come up in just that colour. The only reason you hook up 3 wires is to be able to change colours using RGB LEDs.

Question 3 - Keycode is the MAME key assigned to that button. When this is set, and if you are using controls.ini, then as you scroll through the MAME games, the correct buttons will light up in the correct colours. Without this set, GameEx won't know which buttons belong to what, and therefore can't light up the right buttons for each game - it will rely instead on what you have configured in the "Profile Editor" tab.

  On 11/21/2009 at 1:45 PM, jbrown said:

...- how can you use all 32 imputs, because when you start to wire them, you are left with 2 inputs on the first board, needing 3 per button, can i set device #1 to use these 2 LEDs and use devide #2 for the 3rd, if so how? will the software know how to control one button over 2 boards?

question #2 - what does "always on" do? in the simulation i can't get it to light my buttons. I want to set the buttons up so player #1 is red and #2 is blue and so-on, however i would like the buttons so only come on when need in a game. do i set the color on the 1st screen and use always on?

question #3 - keycode? - is this what i use to make the buttons work right with games? is this how i assign the "Pause" and "Exit" Buttons?

CAN ANYONE HELP?