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Hello. I am planning a juke/arcade cabinet and I want to add some visual bling bling! I would like to have 4 RGB LED chasers and control the LEDs in the cabinet inputs. I looked into the usual DIY arcade LED driving hardware and didn't find anything that would suit my wants, 64 LEDs being the maximum 1 piece of hardware could drive. I kept searching and found that for cheaper, the Rainbowduino (+ a Arduino Uno board) can drive 192. At the time, I thought this was a really sweet discovery! A bit less now that I've seen the amount of work that's gonna be involved compared to using LEDBlinkey. The past few days have been full of things I don't understand, I know nothing about Arduinos. No problem, with the right resources, I'll learn (if you have any to share I am listening).

What I need to know is how I will be able to control the chaser animation sequences. The chasers will be part of a cab so automation IS a need. Now, I looked around and couldn't find any answer on the subject. But then again I just found out that for an Arduino, a program or script is called a sketch! That kinda changes the results google sends you. I don't even know if I have been barking up the right trees.

I use XP sp2 and have the whole system set up to run using batch files and my arcade front-end also uses batch files. Unless I figure out another way to control all my apps, I guess I am limited to batch files.

The system boots to the XP Welcome Screen where you choose which "mode" you want -> Jukebox, Arcade or Karaoke. When you choose your mode, the chosen account boots into the jukebox app or the arcade front-end. You can go back to the Welcome Screen when you want to change your mode (the account logsoff). In the arcade mode you get to choose your emulator.

Will I be able to change the chaser animations according to the chosen mode and emulator using batch files?


This next part is not a prerequisite but would be really cool. Can you have a default animation sequence play on Rainbowduino power on (the driver will get powered when the PSU starts). Then have another sequence start using the StartUp folder (with a batch or shortcut (lnk file)) when the system boots into an account? Then when the system logs the account off (back to the Welcome Screen) Rainbowduino would go back to its default one? I am assuming you need some kind of app to be running to actively feed the animation sequences to the Rainbowduino so I guess I need a default animation for the driver to fall back on when the account logs off.


I may be completely wrong about how this all works and this may be a long shot but before I throw myself in and fork out the cash, I would at least like to know if I can achieve something I can use.

Sorry for the noobness but I gotta start somewhere.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Any help or thoughts you have are welcomed.

Peskoe