Guide - StepMania Lights Circuits [HD]

After 4 months of not even touching this video, I realised I was never going to get it finished due to a massive lack of motivation. However, it is at least complete enough to cover the details of the circuits used in my Custom StepMania Lights, which you can then build into any cabinet you like, which I suppose is what most people who asked me for a tutorial actually wanted.

Please watch in HD to be able to see more in the detailed illustrations. Sorry in advance for the sucky quality of the photos though - I didn't have my HD camcorder when I started making this video, so I just used my PSP's camera.

My lights are designed to work with my own freeware program "StepMania Player", which you can get here:
http://robbi-985.homeip.net:8000/blog/?page_id=84#smp
As well as playing simfiles by itself, my program can also be used to control the lights while you play StepMania, each light being triggered by your keypresses in-game.

When configured correctly, StepMania version "3.9 Plus" can also control the lights directly. However, as you see in the video, it flashes all 4 bulb together, not separately. In the video, the leftmost bulb doesn't light up because a motor is connected inside the box, in place of the bulb (I like messing around).

I hope this is at least of some use to someone. Sorry that I never finished it, but I'm releasing it now having started working on it over a year ago, which is just ridiculous considering how little material there actually is in it.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• StepMania
• lights
• electronic
• build
• tutorial
• custom
• bulb
• flash
• transistor
• resistor

[XShi0X]

With this we can also get the cabinet lights?

[SomethingUnreal]

@XShi0X : They can be made in the same way, yes, but the program I made for controlling these lights is only meant to control arrow lights according to Left/Down/UpRight arrows on a simfile (automatically, or as you press them), plus a couple of other triggers. You could "StepMania 3.9 Plus" to control the cabinet lights, but it fails at controlling the arrow (pad) lights. That's a well-known annoying bug in StepMania 3.9 Plus rather than a hardware problem with the lights, BTW. =P

[OGMO11]

"these bulbs aren't hard to find with a quick google search, though."... now why did it take me literally all day long to find them... lol

[XShi0X]

You can show me some photos of your diargam, and how you use all things in your project?, i want to do this but i can't understand how make some things =/

[SomethingUnreal]

@JosephKorso : I'm glad you like it. =D

Yes, that would work, but StepMania is supposed to control the lights by itself (even if you don't step on the buttons). However, this doesn't actually work - one of the pad lights will never come on (some people say that this is to prevent cheating). For this reason, I used to just use my program with "Realtime Light Control" enabled, which basically did what you're describing, but in software (when you press the arrow keys), instead of in hardware.

[JosephKorso]

@SomethingUnreal Yes, I've tested your awesome program. just now I understand that is made just for step lights, not cabinet lights itself. I wonder if I want just cabinet ones and if it's really necessary using parallel port for pad lights. I mean, can't you just use the circuit with the transistor directly with the button swtich, using 'ground common'?

[SomethingUnreal]

@JosephKorso : I simply used the SSC-32 because I already had it - it's not suited to such a job. Its name stands for "Serial Servo Controller". The "32" indicates that it can control 32 servos. However, my program currently only supports 8 unique outputs (servo channels #0 to #7). This is because there used to be only 8 triggers (left/down/up/right x 2, for dance-double). Now, there are still only 10 triggers (the 2 new ones are "BEAT" and "STOP").

[JosephKorso]

@SomethingUnreal Yeah. Thanx for the reply.

I did what was necessary - as you showed in the guide - and the parallel_lights_io.dll, but the lights keep lighted and nothung happened.

Will try to you your program as a controller, if nothing improves, will need to find out where in my country can I find the SSC-32. By the way, how many indenpendt lights SSC-32 supports?

[SomethingUnreal]

@JosephKorso : As long as the BC 548 is capable of switching the power your lights use, and really is NPN, then it should be fine. I only used the SSC-32 when I didn't know how to use the parallel port (actually, I still use it when I need USB control, via a USB-serial adaptor). My program just supports the 8 data pins on the parallel port, for now, so 8 separately-controllable pins (2-9). For SM3.9+, you need parallel_lights_io.dll (search online) and "LightsDriver=Parallel" in StepMania.ini.