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MeduZaPaT Chris Newton
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Welcome to the project LEDSpicer!

Do you have an arcade box or cabinet or any project with LEDs on it?
Are you running Linux?
You are maybe in the correct place.

LEDSpicer is a program that will handle several LED controller boards to create animations and effects, to be used with arcade cabinets, or any other projects that require an interaction with their LEDs.

The Problem

On May 22 of 2018 I finished my DIY from scratch, full size arcade cabinet, that big box was my fourth arcade box, this time I wanted it big, four players, 32" screen, with lights and everything on it.

First Picture after finishing


The hardware project began in March 2018 with a lot of work and passion, I always have been passionate about arcades.

To control the LEDs I got an Ultimarc Ultimate I/O board, all the hardware was in place and when I started working on setting up the software; I found that the number of options to control the LEDs panel on Linux are limited to only one.

##The solution

After checking my options, and with my developer background, I began writing this open source project around the first days of Jun 2018, so now Linux users have one more option out there.
I'm terrible at naming things, so I normally ask my wife for cool names for my projects, she came out with this name after a long explanation of what the program does, if you don't like the name, go speak with her... good luck....

Demo video with four pulse actors and one serpentine.

Supported boards

Features

  • Very optimized, consumes almost no memory and CPU.
  • Supports many different devices at the same time seamlessly and as a simple huge device, this simplifies the configuration process when the user wants to use several devices all together.
  • RGB and single color elements can be used without complications.
  • Elements can be grouped into the layout.
  • Easily can be handled using a command line program to change the LEDs behavior using layouts, groups, or just elements.
  • Multiple animations can be set to different groups.
  • Layout, Groups or Elements can be changed based on triggers.
  • Animations and Devices can be extended with plugins.
  • Smooth transitions between layouts can be set.
  • Integrated Hardware Test.
  • Integrated Layout Test.
  • Configuration dump for easy debug.
  • The speed can be changed to increase or decrease the FPS when drawing on the layout.
  • Add several different animations to the same Group to generate even more rich attraction modes.
  • Extremely easy to create animations and layouts using XML.
  • Several Color filters allow the combination of several animations in one, like masking, combine, etc.
  • Multichannel sound output plugin with different modes can map to the sections of the layout.
  • Pulse output plugin with multiple modes that allow the creation of several fading effects.
  • Gradient output plugin with multiple modes to generate different gradient animation effects.
  • Filler output plugin with multiple modes to generate nice filling effects.
  • Random output plugin can generate nice and colorful effects.
  • Serpentine output plugin, can generate different advancing effects.
  • Runs on most Linux distribution and on Raspberry or PC hardware.
  • Support for MAME output events, to turn elements or groups ON/OFF on the layout based on the games that support this, like credit buttons, player start, and other elements.
  • Can load layouts based on game name, emulator, game controllers, defaults, etc.
  • and much more...

Quick Start Guide

This is a small guide I created to get things working quicky. In addition to reading the quick start guide, I recommend you read the entire set of documentation.

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