(Topic ID: 29684)

FS: LED OCD - Eliminate LED flicker/strobe/ghost - Control brightness

By herg

11 years ago


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    There are 835 posts in this topic. You are on page 12 of 17.
    #551 9 years ago
    Quoted from judremy:

    I just bought an LED OCD for my LOTR and wanted to know if you have any special settings for the Palantir with using the Palantir v5 that jrobinso99 made.

    Nothing all that special. Just use an evenly spaced ramp where the brightness is where you want it. It will depend a lot on how bright your other LEDs are and how bright the Palantir needs to be in order to blend nicely.

    Quoted from judremy:

    Also, does this do anything for flashers?

    Sorry, but no, it's lamp matrix only.

    #552 9 years ago

    Dude, this thing ROCKS! Have it in my RBION and with just the default settings it's a major improvement. Looking forward to tweaking it to perfection. Great invention, well worth every penny!

    #553 9 years ago
    Quoted from herg:

    My friend's machine (RBION) is now my machine! I've just started swapping the Premiums that are in it for Comet Frosted 5050s, which are basically the same as CT Supers. These settings are getting really close, in my opinion:
    14 14 14 24 40 40 60 85 ; Delay = 3

    If you care to give them a try, I think they'll help yours as well.

    Just saw this in here... congratulations! I'm sure you'll find it as entertaining a machine as any. Vastly undervalued IMO. And from what I can tell, some unique fading that doesn't seem to be in a lot of machines.

    I had a look at your settings and gave them a go, and from this:

    Quoted from herg:

    What seems important for the slower fading sequences on RBION is that B1 - B3 are the same and B5/B6 are the same. This is because during those fades, there are times where the output is bouncing between two values and if there is a big difference between the two, it shows up as a flicker.

    I've tweaked it slightly. This is using values I'm a little more comfortable with (I prefer slightly lower brightness on mine anyway) but still reduces the flicker:
    10 20 20 30 40 40 50 60 ; Delay = 3

    I think the B1 out of those few groups that need to be the same can be a little flexible, as the fading would really only be controlled once the light it is on, wouldn't it? (if that makes sense)

    Also wanted to briefly ask: Is there much difference in software revisions other than updated table profiles? I noticed the version number of the .exe was different, but don't know if there's any point in using a newer one or not.

    Very, VERY happy with your contribution to the community, Herg. I doubt I'll ever have another pin again which doesn't have one of your boards in it

    #554 9 years ago
    Quoted from Shaneus:

    I prefer slightly lower brightness on mine anyway

    I do too, but what I typically end up doing is find a ramp shape that works smoothly, then change the other profiles to match that shape, only dimmer. I then play the game over time and pick out which inserts need to be dimmed and work my way toward a nice, even lighting. It's highly dependent on what types and colors of bulbs are used. That's the #1 reason I decided to make it as flexible as possible. Everyone has their own preferences.

    Quoted from Shaneus:

    I think the B1 out of those few groups that need to be the same can be a little flexible, as the fading would really only be controlled once the light it is on, wouldn't it?

    This might get a bit complicated, but let's try anyway. The game is controlling the lamps by turning them on or off within a rigid set of timeslots. In order to interpret that as a brightness level, I'm using a sliding window average. For the sake of simplicity, let's just say it's over 8 timeslots, since that makes the math easier to understand. Also, keep in mind, this is just the part where I'm figuring out what the game is trying to do. It doesn't take your brightness percentages or delay into account, and that is applied as a separate algorithm later.

    Now, an example output from the machine. In the first row, 1's are timeslots where the lamp is on, 0's are timeslots where the lamp is off. In the second row, I'm showing the interpreted brightness level.

    This example is a relatively fast blink.

    0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 8 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 0

    The example is a 50% brightness (as attempted by most games). Notice the steady 4's in the output.

    0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0

    Now, a 66% pattern from the game. This is where B5 and B6 end up alternating.

    0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 2 3 4 4 5 6 5 5 6 5 5 6 5 5 6 5 4 4 3 2 2 1 0 0

    33% from the game. It results in the alternating B2 and B3.

    0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 2 3 3 2 3 3 2 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 0 0 0

    And finally, 20%. Here's where B1 and B2 can come in.

    0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0

    Really, what matters, however, is how it looks when you're done. There are no strict rules on how you set it up.

    Quoted from Shaneus:

    Is there much difference in software revisions other than updated table profiles?

    Recently, most of the updates are to add data files for additional games. There have been a few updates to fix bugs. The most recent one, for example, displays a warning if a data file does not include the correct number of inserts. A customer ran into a problem where a customer provided data file for TSPP only had 72 inserts defined in it, the software misinterpreted it, and communications with the OCD board were incorrect as a result.

    #555 9 years ago

    Ohh... thanks so much for your input! That makes complete sense when you write it out (probably painstakingly, thank you!) like that.

    Almost a shame you have an RBION because I was looking forward to submitting the mappings and contributing in my own small way to the project

    #556 9 years ago
    Quoted from Shaneus:

    Ohh... thanks so much for your input! That makes complete sense when you write it out (probably painstakingly, thank you!) like that.
    Almost a shame you have an RBION because I was looking forward to submitting the mappings and contributing in my own small way to the project

    I'd like to take a look at your settings, shoot me an export!

    #557 9 years ago

    Dang it Herg, I really need one of these for my STTNG. Hurry up and build some more!

    #558 9 years ago
    Quoted from Schwaggs:

    Dang it Herg, I really need one of these for my STTNG. Hurry up and build some more!

    I would guess you already know this, but there is a batch of LED OCD for Williams/DE already being built. ETA is early next month. LED OCD for Stern and GI OCD for WPC are in stock now.

    #559 9 years ago

    Hi Herg,

    I would like to buy some of your ocd boards for my wpc pinballs.
    Is there an european reseller where i could buy these ?

    Thanks in advance.

    #560 9 years ago
    Quoted from kosmo:

    Is there an european reseller where i could buy these ?

    Sorry, but no, I don't have a European reseller. Art at Comet Pinball can forward them to European customers (for a fee), assuming I have them in stock.

    #561 9 years ago
    Quoted from Matt_Rasmussen:

    I'd like to take a look at your settings, shoot me an export!

    I've been doing a bit of tinkering since this post, and I think I've found something that strikes a great balance with the half-brightness and fading effects of the game:
    10 17 17 30 43 43 56 69, delay of 1

    Works for the majority of inserts, adjust accordingly for ones that are too bright or too dull. These are with the .69c single SMDs from Comet and I find the brightness spot-on.

    #562 9 years ago

    Finally got my LOTR programmed up a bit. I have a few questions for Herg:
    1. Any chance you can do some minor changes to the interface for thr LED OCD application?
    A. Add A column for insert color? Such as the color of the plastic insert in the playfield. This would be useful if you wanted to set all <insert color here> inserts to a certain setting.
    B. Can you add scroll bars if the window is too small? The only laptop I have runs at a Max resolution of 1024 x 768. Everything on the right side is cut off. You have to use the arrow keys on the keyboard to use the right most drop lists. It seriously hampers the usage. I know I should get a new laptop, but I just got laid off and can't afford one right now.
    C. Is there a shared place we can upload configurations to share?

    Other than that, I think this thing is great!

    #563 9 years ago
    Quoted from judremy:

    Finally got my LOTR programmed up a bit. I have a few questions for Herg:
    1. Any chance you can do some minor changes to the interface for thr LED OCD application?
    A. Add A column for insert color? Such as the color of the plastic insert in the playfield. This would be useful if you wanted to set all <insert color here> inserts to a certain setting.
    B. Can you add scroll bars if the window is too small? The only laptop I have runs at a Max resolution of 1024 x 768. Everything on the right side is cut off. You have to use the arrow keys on the keyboard to use the right most drop lists. It seriously hampers the usage. I know I should get a new laptop, but I just got laid off and can't afford one right now.
    C. Is there a shared place we can upload configurations to share?
    Other than that, I think this thing is great!

    I started the LED OCD club, this post would be excellent there, and feel free to post links to your layouts there to, from your OneDrive or dropbox or whatever.

    #564 9 years ago
    Quoted from judremy:

    Add A column for insert color?

    I could fairly easily add that, and it is a pretty good idea. It would, however, require that the insert data files have the color info added when they are created, which would make it a good bit of extra work. I'm not sure it would end up being worth the effort in the end. Anyone else think it would be worthwhile? It would also make the list on the left of the screen wider.

    Quoted from judremy:

    Can you add scroll bars if the window is too small?

    Oh, crap! We just made the window content bigger! One thing I might be able to do is scale the width of the list when the width of the window changes. This along with allowing the column widths to be changed might make it such that it would fit in 1024 pixels.

    Quoted from judremy:

    Is there a shared place we can upload configurations to share?

    Not right now. Any ideas of how to do this? Is there a site that allows sharing of text files? Maybe a wiki on the ledocd.com site? This is outside my experience, so I'd have to learn how to manage it. In any case, I wouldn't want to have to spend a bunch of time monitoring it.

    #565 9 years ago
    Quoted from herg:

    I could fairly easily add that, and it is a pretty good idea. It would, however, require that the insert data files have the color info added when they are created, which would make it a good bit of extra work. I'm not sure it would end up being worth the effort in the end. Anyone else think it would be worthwhile? It would also make the list on the left of the screen wider.

    The color idea sounds cool, but not sure how useful it would be in practice. The range might need to be different for regular and FLEX leds, and that is assuming all of the others of the same color are the same type. Might be cool to display though as an optional column if the data is available for a game. If you add it, I would be willing to gather the data for the two games that I have that can use LED OCD - G'nR and No Fear. I might be able to get the new owner of my STTNG and Demo Man to gather those as well.

    #566 9 years ago

    I just took a look at this, and the default window size for the LED OCD app is 900 x 572, so it should fit just fine on a 1024 x 768 screen. Do you mind taking a screenshot so I can see what you're talking about?

    Quoted from Nexyss:

    not sure how useful it would be in practice

    I'm starting to think the same thing. It's a lot of work for not a whole lot of gain. There's probably other things that would be more worth doing in the little spare time I have.

    #567 9 years ago

    Seems weird to have these discussions on a thread that is about getting rid of an LED OCD.

    #568 9 years ago
    Quoted from Matt_Rasmussen:

    Seems weird to have these discussions on a thread that is about getting rid of an LED OCD.

    Well, I guess FS: could make it look like a single board that is for sale, but it's more like an "all things LED OCD" thread. I am the OP, after all. I just don't want to spam all over Pinside with a bunch of threads.

    #569 9 years ago

    Has anybody had any experience with one of these in a Congo? And when will they be back in stock?

    #570 9 years ago

    I just wanted to drop in and say how much I love LEDOCD. I thought I would never like LEDs but this LEDOCD makes them awesome looking. I just put my second one into my IMVE. It is a very clean and nicely layed out PCB. Thanks Herg!

    #571 9 years ago
    Quoted from metahugh:

    I just put my second one into my IMVE

    Did you set the bulb type to incandescent in the game's test menus? This should give you the same fancy fades and stuff that were in the game before Stern chopped them out to accommodate LEDs. I have not yet been able to verify this, however.

    #572 9 years ago
    Quoted from herg:

    Did you set the bulb type to incandescent in the game's test menus? This should give you the same fancy fades and stuff that were in the game before Stern chopped them out to accommodate LEDs. I have not yet been able to verify this, however.

    There is definitely a difference in the light shows. Here is a side by side I did before installing the board:

    http://www.youtube.com/embed/kp-Zgko3Ljs?autoplay=1&rel=0

    I set my game to incandescent.

    #573 9 years ago

    What is LED mode vs incandescent mode?

    #574 9 years ago
    Quoted from Crash:

    What is LED mode vs incandescent mode?

    When Stern put LEDs in IMVE, they decided to cut out all the fading effects that looked good with incandescents, but flickered badly with LEDs. Luckily, they gave us a software option to turn the effects back on.

    #575 9 years ago

    And thanks too Herg's awesome board with a few tweaks here and there you can achieve all those cool effects again.

    #576 9 years ago
    Quoted from metahugh:

    I thought I would never like LEDs but this LEDOCD makes them awesome looking.

    Yeah, it's awesome. When I have new people over they always have to do a double take when I tell them when my playfield inserts are actually LEDs.

    1 week later
    #577 9 years ago

    wow.. fast sellout! I got mine

    #578 9 years ago
    Quoted from Troutfarm:

    wow.. fast sellout! I got mine

    Yeah, I think you guys are trying to kill me.

    I'm not even sure how many of what got ordered, and there were a number of cases where people ordered WPC cables and left notes that they wanted Sys11 just so they could get the order into the system. I'm going to have to go to bed and clear up the confusion tomorrow.

    #579 9 years ago
    Quoted from herg:

    Yeah, I think you guys are trying to kill me.
    I'm not even sure how many of what got ordered, and there were a number of cases where people ordered WPC cables and left notes that they wanted Sys11 just so they could get the order into the system. I'm going to have to go to bed and clear up the confusion tomorrow.

    Sneaky buggers. Why didn't I think of that? I must be slippin'.

    Order placed. Thanks herg. If by some miracle my shipment makes it in time for the Ottawa Pinball show I'll make sure to take a video of it for you.

    Goodnight!

    #580 9 years ago
    Quoted from herg:

    ... there were a number of cases where people ordered WPC cables and left notes that they wanted Sys11 just so they could get the order into the system.

    Guilty party here.

    If I had known you were going to sell out of the main boards, I would have ordered a couple more. I have a feeling I'm really going to like how these work and then want them in all my games, not just a few.

    #581 9 years ago

    looks like there are more

    #582 9 years ago

    Finally got the boards I need to finish off the rest of my pins.

    #583 9 years ago

    I have a bunch more boards that I didn't add to inventory because I had not yet finished testing them. I thought the ones I had already done would be enough to tide you guys over until this evening when I can test more. I totally underestimated the demand this time.

    So, I went ahead and added the untested boards to the website, though they will be tested before they ship. Also, I have some more Sys11 cable sets that are nearly complete, some of which will be necessary to fill the "trojan horse" orders.

    Once the dust settles, I hope I have enough stuff on hand to fill all of the orders that have been placed. If not, I will fill orders in the order they came in, then notify the remaining ones to find out how they prefer to handle it; refund or wait until I get more stuff.

    It's not a big deal, but the funky orders did mess up my inventory numbers, which is why I'm so confused about what I really have. I'll get it all sorted out after work.

    #584 9 years ago

    I just LED'ed my FT...looks great but I really miss the fading and sweeping lighting effects. Will your board work with FT? If so count me in. Do I order on the website? Do you need a different board for Stern games? If I sell FT, would the board work on my 2010 IM?

    #585 9 years ago

    Sterns and WPC take different boards so you cannot use one in the other.

    #586 9 years ago

    I did not read through all twelve pages of this post so I hope this has not been asked already. Will this work equally well with the "non-ghosting" LEDs that are advertised or will you need to adjust for them?

    Bill

    #587 9 years ago

    Here is my experience with the non-ghosting LEDs and the LED OCD board. On my Stern games, the non-ghosting LEDs had an annoying flicker/strobing. On my WPC games, the non-ghosting looked fine but they would come on a fraction of a second slower than the others. Other people may have other experiences.

    #588 9 years ago

    Best to stick with plain old basic LEDs for this application. Even polarized ones will work since the lamp matrix is driven with DC. Herg, riddle me this. Do the diodes in rectified LEDs impact the response time of the LED with regards to the 250Hz refresh rate of the OCD matrix? Or do they not impede the function at all? I know certain types of diodes have a frequency response ceiling but I think that limit would be much higher than what we're working with.

    #589 9 years ago
    Quoted from SealClubber:

    Here is my experience with the non-ghosting LEDs and the LED OCD board. On my Stern games, the non-ghosting LEDs had an annoying flicker/strobing. On my WPC games, the non-ghosting looked fine but they would come on a fraction of a second slower than the others. Other people may have other experiences.

    Sounds like you need to tweak out your LED OCD in your Stern that have with non-ghosting, since the entire idea of this idea is to not have flicker, at all.

    #590 9 years ago

    I've had a lot of people asking about "Why can't I order?", cables out of stock, buying a board and waiting for cables, etc.

    Yes, I'm completely out of WPC, Sys11, and DE cables. I do have Stern.

    I have more cables on order, but I'm being told November before I can get them. I'm planning to build some, but it will be slow going.

    I prefer not to sell boards now and put cables on a wait list, mainly because I don't want to take money and owe people stuff. It's not something I agree with, and I don't want to get into a situation where I can't get items in a timely manner when people have already paid.

    I have thought about selling the boards separately and providing cable diagrams so that people could build them their selves. I'm a little hesitant about that, however, since I think it will lead to a lot more support emails.

    #591 9 years ago

    You're gonna need a bigger boat!

    I'll you, I've always thought your OCD board thing was cool, but until I noticed the DRAMTIC difference in the light sweep effect after LEDing FT, I wondered if I'd ever actually buy one. I can live with the lighting in IM, and don't even notice a difference in JM, but with FT, I almost want to swap the incandescents back in. There's a sweep effect that is just lost with the LEDs, despite how awesome they look otherwise.

    Please put me on your waiting list for a WPC version for my FT.

    And has anyone bought this for FT and can they come in?

    #592 9 years ago
    Quoted from Matt_Rasmussen:

    Sounds like you need to tweak out your LED OCD in your Stern that have with non-ghosting, since the entire idea of this idea is to not have flicker, at all.

    It was easier to just replace the bulbs with regular LEDs.

    #593 9 years ago
    Quoted from herg:

    I've had a lot of people asking about "Why can't I order?", cables out of stock, buying a board and waiting for cables, etc.
    Yes, I'm completely out of WPC, Sys11, and DE cables. I do have Stern.
    I have more cables on order, but I'm being told November before I can get them. I'm planning to build some, but it will be slow going.
    I prefer not to sell boards now and put cables on a wait list, mainly because I don't want to take money and owe people stuff. It's not something I agree with, and I don't want to get into a situation where I can't get items in a timely manner when people have already paid.
    I have thought about selling the boards separately and providing cable diagrams so that people could build them their selves. I'm a little hesitant about that, however, since I think it will lead to a lot more support emails.

    I can see how that would be a concern, but it would help overall sales I think.

    #594 9 years ago
    Quoted from herg:

    Once the dust settles, I hope I have enough stuff on hand to fill all of the orders that have been placed. If not, I will fill orders in the order they came in, then notify the remaining ones to find out how they prefer to handle it; refund or wait until I get more stuff.

    UPDATE: All of the orders that were placed late last week have either been shipped or are ready to be shipped. None of them will have to be cancelled.

    There are 2 unclaimed Sys11 cable sets that I will be putting on the website ~7pm today. Since there are only 2, I didn't feel it was worth a notification email, but I wanted to give fair warning to people who really want them. It will likely be a couple months before more Sys11 kits will be available. Good luck.

    I am also planning to build 18 sets of WPC cables, hopefully available around 9/15. This depends on my available time and motivation. They will be first-come, first-served; no waiting list, no pre-orders.

    Quoted from herg:

    I have thought about selling the boards separately and providing cable diagrams so that people could build them their selves. I'm a little hesitant about that, however, since I think it will lead to a lot more support emails.

    Quoted from Matt_Rasmussen:

    I can see how that would be a concern, but it would help overall sales I think.

    Overall sales are not my primary concern right now. I want people to have the boards they want, but not at the cost of my family time or my sanity.

    #595 9 years ago
    Quoted from mrbill08:

    I did not read through all twelve pages of this post so I hope this has not been asked already. Will this work equally well with the "non-ghosting" LEDs that are advertised or will you need to adjust for them?
    Bill

    Short answer ... both LED OCD and GI OCD will work ok with non-ghosting bulbs, but cheap bulbs work a bit better. your satisfaction will depend on how "OCD" you are about the lighting . Longer answer below:

    I just finished another pass on my games that have these boards, focusing on standard versus non-ghosting bulbs, and working specifically on smoothing out the fades. I found two main differences between standard and non-ghosting bulbs. First, the non-ghosting bulbs light up a fraction of a second later than standards all things being equal. This isn't noticeable unless you're really looking, though, and can be fixed pretty easily with the software Herg provides.

    Second, and more annoyingly (to me at least) is that non-ghosting bulbs suck at fading in and fading out. They go from off to on without much transition, and thus you don't get as much of that pleasing fade effect that is one of the main benefits of LED / GI OCD. You can somewhat improve the fading by adjusting the software settings for non-ghosting bulbs by raising the starting brightness from zero to some value just below where they begin to light up (mine began to light up around "25" in LED OCD, but test them out because different brands behave differently). Even with these adjustments, however, the cheap bulbs still fade much more smoothly. For GI OCD especially, you will likely get uneven flickering and generally disappointing results when the game tries to use certain dim levels with non-ghosting bulbs.

    Also relevant -- I was sad to see Art at CometPinball is discontinuing flex-head standard bulbs, selling only non-ghosting flex heads from now on (not complaining - Art is the best). Luckily, the always-reliable Cointaker still sells standard (non-premium) flex-head bulbs, if anyone's looking.

    #596 9 years ago

    just some free advertising. Just put both boards in my new JM.
    https://vimeo.com/105275645

    #597 9 years ago

    Harold, meaning we don't have to wait until November?

    #598 9 years ago
    Quoted from TheFamilyArcade:

    Harold, meaning we don't have to wait until November?

    That is correct. There are 2 sets of Sys11 cables on the website now and I'm making 18 WPC sets. These will go with the 20 boards that are on there.

    #599 9 years ago

    Holy crap! My order showed up today! I can't wait to install this on the weekend! Thank you herg! It's B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!

    20140905_184450.jpg20140905_184450.jpg

    #600 9 years ago

    The batch of WPC cables I've been building is finished, and they're up on the website. I tried to use the notifications from my website, but it's giving me errors.

    Anyway, I wanted to try to make it as fair as possible for anyone who wanted to try to get one, and I couldn't be sure who might have not received the email.

    There are 835 posts in this topic. You are on page 12 of 17.

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