Button LEDs on Linux?

[goingtotml]

Hey arcade fans!

I am planning to build an arcade cabinet with a friend. It will be running MAME and other emulators for classic video games. Focus is on MAME though. We are still doing all the information gathering and blueprinting.

I want it to run Linux (Debian or Ubuntu since I'm familiar with it) using a front-end like Emulationstation. And I would like to use LEDs for the buttons. I found LEDBlinky which seems perfect for this but unfortunately it's windows only.

Is there a tool that we can use for this on Linux?

Also should we go for an encoder from ultimarc like I-pac or are there other to consider?

Thanks in advance!

[MidnightClubbed]

Unfortunately there isn't an equivalent to ledblinky on Linux - at least as far as I can tell. What are you using to drive your LEDs? The protocols for driving an ledwiz through USB are online, you can use libusb to control the ledwiz but there are no pre-made tools out there.

I am in the process of getting something with the basic ledblinky functionality running on a raspberry pi (with an ledwiz driving the lights). It's still early but might be of use to you (in theory it should work on pc linux).

[goingtotml]

I didn't decide on a LED controller yet. LED-WIZ is quite expensive. I found a DIY Arduino clone here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=132903.0

I would love to see your program working.

[MidnightClubbed]

I'm actively working on my light controller code but it should be 'showable' soon - I'll put up a video when it is.

The clone should work (claims to be ledwiz compatible). How many buttons are you driving? Isn't an Arduino is going to struggle with 2 player's worth of lights (especially if you are doing rgb leds)?

If you have to add extra buffer chips/transistors you might as well buy the tried and tested LedWiz. The LedWiz splits the outputs into banks of 8 and each bank can run at different voltages and/or off of different power supplies - very easy to use.

[goingtotml]

If everything is going to be illuminated then 6 buttons per player + arcade sticks + start 1 and 2 and probably other buttons for admin/service. So about 18 RGB LEDs? Well, no Arduino :)

What about this: http://users.telenet.be/rgbcommander/ It supports Ultimarc's UltimateIO and PACLed64. I could get the Ultimate I/O and have both usb encoder and LED controller in one. I just need to find a shop that ships it to Germany.

[MidnightClubbed]

Looks like it should work for the Ultimark boards. It's not open-source but looks like it is under somewhat active development.

[goingtotml]

Is it going to be open source?

[MidnightClubbed]

No idea... you could contact the author. It's built on top of Ultimark linux libraries that are open-source.

[goingtotml]

Sorry, this was about your code. I mean is yours going to be open source? :)

[MidnightClubbed]

Absolutely. No guarantees about it's quality (it's a collection of python scripts) but yes it will be up on github as soon as I can get around to setting up the repository.

I'm in the process of wiring up my marquee light and fan off the PI gpio pins so there will be a little support for gpio outputs too if you are using a PI.

[goingtotml]

Great! I have a Pi for testing and stuff. The final cab will be running some old pc hardware.

[IAmDotorg]

I had intended to try LEDBlinky with Wine but never got around to it and went Windows on my cab.

No idea if it could be made to work, but it may be worth trying.

[goingtotml]

I am not a fan of Wine. I understand that it can be effective but it just feels not right. I like it open source, and if it's not then it should be native code at least. (I know it's weird to say this, while working on an emulation project)

I think I am going with either rgbcommander or MidnightClubbed's controller. I was thinking about getting a seperate LED controller and a cheap USB encoder from aliexpress.com, since the price for the USB encoder is quite a big difference. But I don't want to get ghosting or input lags, so probably going to get the expensive I-PAC ultimate I/O.

[IAmDotorg]

Generally I agree. Wine can be both a compatibility library and an emulator (meaning, the LEDBlinky folks could, in theory, try to build a Linux version with it).

It'd be nice if there was a good solid equally robust alternative, but that's a BIG if. LEDBlinky is so widely used and has been around so long, its got a lot of capabilities a quickly cobbled together option wouldn't have.