My Insane Arcade System Build (Part 5)

We have narrowed down the buttons that we want, but really need to understand how we are going to light them before we make a final decision.    It is probably easiest to buy the buttons and the LED controllers from the same place as you would expect that they have been tested to work together.   So, since we previously established that we were down to the Groovy Game Gear and Ultimarc buttons, it makes sense to look at the controllers they sell as well.

Groovy Game Gear sells the LED-Wiz32 which can control 32 LEDs.   Ultimarc has the PACLED64 that can contol 64 LEDs.   If you will recall, we have 43 buttons, plus 5 sticks, and 1 track ball that we need to light.   So, we have 49 LEDs total that need to be lit.   So, we can order 2 LED-Wiz32s or 1 PACLED64, right?

Not so fast there.  The devil is in the details.   If you read carefully, you will discover that 1 single color LED uses fewer leads than 1 RGB LED.   A single color LED has 2 leads.   An RGB LED has 4!  In addition, the RGB LED needs one lead for each of the three colors, and one lead for ground.   So, we can think of an RGB LED as actually being 3 single color LEDs, which changes the math a bit.   We still have 49 physical LEDs, but since we want to be able to control all three colors in the RGB LEDs, we actually need controls for 49*3, or 147 LEDs.   This means that we need 5 LED-Wiz32s, or 3 PACLED64 boards to drive all of those colors.

Suddenly, the pricing for getting all of this light looks a bit different.   However, there is another factor to consider that is more aesthetic.  The PACLED64 requires power in addition to the USB cable, where the LED-Wiz32 seems to pull its power from the USB bus.   So, the PACLED64 is going to require some extra wires be extended in to your control panel to light all of the buttons.   However, the LED-Wiz32 will either require additional USB cables going in to the control panel, or a powered USB hub to be installed.   However, one thing to be aware of with powered USB hubs is most HUBs aren't built to provide maximum power to all of the ports on the hub.   So, finding a hub to use with the LED-Wiz32 may well be a guess and check type of proposition.

My decision ultimately came down to cost and difficulty.   While I am not jazzed about pulling extra power wires in to the control panel to power the PACLED64, I am even less jazzed about finding a USB hub with enough power in it to feed the LED-Wiz32.   Not to mention, both basically require pulling power in to the control panel to run the LEDs.   Then, factor in the cost difference between the two, and I elected to go with the PACLED64.    However, it is important to note that my decision was based purely on cost.   How well either board works is something I don't have the money to compare.   So, I am taking a roll of the dice that they both perform similarly.

So, I elected to purchase the LED controller and buttons from Ultimarc.   However, there was an issue when I went to order them.   I needed 43, but the on-line site claimed they only had 20.   So, I shot a quick e-mail over to Andy at Ultimarc to ask when more buttons would be in.  Andy responded within 24 hours saying that it was an issue with the web site, and he had plenty in stock.   The issue was fixed, and I was able to order.

So, the only other things that I needed to sort out is getting the quick connects and wire ordered.   In part 1, I mentioned that I ordered those parts from AllElectronics.com.   The order was pretty much a couple spools of wire, a couple hundred quick connects in a couple of sizes to be safe, and some 24 pin D-Sub connectors (both male and female).

The D-Subs probably seem to come out of left field.  Why the heck would you need them!?   Well, back in part 1 of this effort, I mentioned that I wanted to have the option to wire in a JAMMA harness in the future, so that I could collect the hardware versions of my favorite games.   I figure that if I solder all of the wires from the switches in to some D-Sub connectors then I can later wire a JAMMA harness to the opposite gender D-Sub connectors, and I have a quick way to switch between the systems.   How well this idea works remains to be seen.   However, I figure worst case I end up wasting some time to add some flexibility to the overall project.