How you like my first PS2 mod?

[darcsyde]

It's very simple but also clean and original looking which I like. I like to mod things to enhance it not to make it scream out "I've been modded"

[NFG]

Wasn't that originally a 2-colour LED?  

[darcsyde]

No it was just a red LED at first, but you gave me an idea I wonder if any company makes a bi-color LED (blue&red)?

[NFG]

I've never seen any 2-coloured LEDs with blue and red, but I HAVE seen tri-coloured LEDs that can do any combo or RGB, you should be able to use just two legs of one of these.

The old pre-PS2 DualShocks used two-coloured LEDs, red and green.  I don't actually own a PS2...  =)

[darcsyde]

Where can I find these tri-colored LEDs? So it could be red,blue,green or even more colors if those are mixed or no?

[NFG]

You can get some 256 colours (or more) by flickering one or more colours to simulate different brightnesses.  You might be able to do it by varying voltages too, but I'm not sure about it.  I don't know where YOU can get 'em, I just buy 'em off the shelf in akihabara.  =)

[Ultimate Dev'r]

You can get RGB LED's from mouser, Rapid Electronics, Super LED's, Lumex, etc. They're kinda expensive, depending on where you shop. And yes, blue and red LED's exist. And with RGB LED's, you can only get 7 colors out of it; Red, Green, Blue, Magenta, Cyan, Yellow, and White light.

EDIT: This place has a really weird ranking system.....

[Aidan]

Using PWM techniques, you can get any colour covered by the gamut of the LEDs, rather than just the seven colours.

[Ultimate Dev'r]

What are PWM techniques? Does it involve changing the wavelenghts produced by the RGB LED's or something?

[fragment]

wow how did you change that LED? I remember looking at it and thinking it would be a pain for some reason.

[Aidan]

What are PWM techniques? Does it involve changing the wavelenghts produced by the RGB LED's or something?

No, PWM stands for Pulse Width Modulation, which is a digital technique for varying power delivered over time. It's main advantage is that the control system can be totally digital.

Although you can't change the wavelengths of the LEDs, you can change how strong each colour appears, and hence alter the shade that appears to be displayed. This is how display devices such as CRTs work - they can't change the wavelengths of the phosphors any more than you can change the wavelengths of LEDs. CRTs work quite well with just three wavelengths for red, green and blue, so you can apply the same concepts to LEDs.

[phreak97]

lawrence i never saw a dual shock any colour other than red, where did you get dual colour leds in a ds from? :/

[NFG]

It seems to me the original Dual Shocks had 3 modes, unlike the modern ones.  Digital pad, dual shock, and twin-analogue, like the flight stick.  They were also, IIRC, a little bigger that the standard pad, but this is going back a looong time now.  Memory's fuzzy about last week, let alone the greater part of a decade.  =)

[Aidan]

I agree with Lawrence - there were some dual shock pads that were trimode, and lit up either green or red depending in which analog mode they were operating in. I never saw a pad that could do this, but the serial protocol that was decoded had flags in to indicate which mode the controller was in.


Edit: Gotcha! See http://www.zen35383.zen.co.uk/stnield/psxpads.txt  and look for the  "SCPH-1150 (analog controller)" entry.

[phreak97]

it is quite possible those tri-mode cons were replaced before they made it to australia, if anyone has one for sale, please feel free to pm me, i am always interested in 'different' things

[-Martin-]

I've never seen a tri-color LED in a PS controler either, all of the ones in the UK had red leds.

[Ultimate Dev'r]

The Mad Catz dualshock 2 controllers have dual color LED's in them; off for normal, green for digital, and red for analog.

[TJ_Kat]

*bump!*

I'm curious, what kind of led is in the dual shock controller? I had figured it would just be a rectangular led, but when I opened up the controller to check it out, it was a little tiny thing.

I need to know what I should be looking for.

[ReRuss]

Blue seems ok , but I wouldn't allow the LED to be too bright tho.

I think a darker blue or purple would be nice , possibly orange or green.

[Aidan]

From memory, it's a surface mounted LED, shining into a diffuser to make it to the front panel. I've got an RGB LED that cost me far too much, and I've coupled it with a PICmicro (12C508) to do PWM randomly between the base colours. I've not tried putting it in a PS2 pad yet, but I might try at some point, if I don't find something else to fit it to.

[TJ_Kat]

Okay, now what's it called? I would like to be able to go to the electronics store and just ask for it specifically, so I don't have to waste my time looking for it. Odds are I'm going to have to have it specially ordered so I'm going to need to know what it's properly called.

[phreak97]

the led in my dual shock 2 was a regular transparent rectangular one.. i disconnected one lead so it wouldnt come on, then put a blue led behind it shining through. it looks quite nice.. but for some reason now the right stick has its axis mashed together.. i press up and it goes up left, i press down it goes down right.. its like theres a line drawn from top left to bottom right which is the only place the stick will register.. it snaps to the closest point.
all i did was remove the resistor connected to the led because the original led ran on 2.something v  whereas the new one runs on 3.5v

i have no idea what happened, i've checked it over more than once

[TJ_Kat]

Well, since I'm obviously not asking the right questions to produce the answer I'm looking for, I'll just take the led out of an old busted dual shock and take it to the electronics store and ask if they have the same thing in another color.

[NFG]

All LEDs are the same, more or less.  You have to go out of your way to find one that isn't a 5v LED.  Sometimes you'll find a 3v or 1.8v but these are really rare and unless you request it you won't end up with it.  Just ask for an LED.  THe other rating to watch is the MCD or millicandle rating.  Modern LEDs can be mega-bright, I've got some 3500 MCD blue LEDs that are blinding to look at.  Early blue LEDs were a mere 35MCD.

[Guest]

I bought a slew of led's from radioshack for cheap. They have in a big assortment. There were a bunch of 3 volt and 1.8 volts. I bought a variety pack for a couple bucks and it included a wide variety of colors and voltage ratings.. including orange .

[TJ_Kat]

Thank you Lawrence. That explains why only the LEDs have an MCD number beside them in my catalogue.

However, I'm still curious about size. What size is the LED in the dual shock? My catalogue doesn't have anything that small (it only has 3mm and 5mm rounded, and 5 mm rectangular ones).

Next, how many mA does the dual shock send to the led? All the brightness ratings in my catalogue are dependant on amperage.

What would be a good MCD rating to put in a controller? I don't want something that will make me go blind, or be so bright it distracts me from playing the game, but it's also got to be bright enough to still look good.

[phreak97]

if you are modding a dual shock 2, there is a resistor on the pcb, as the original led is a lower voltage one (dont know which off hand). the resistor is a tiny surface mount one, a little rectangle with numbers on it. you should probably bridge that if you want your led to be bright enough. also i said this before but nobody seems to have caught on. because of the fact that rectangular blue, white, pink, whatever leds are hard to come by, and the fact that the default ds2 led is transparent when unpowered, not coloured, the best way of adding an alternate coloured led is simply to disconnect the positive leg of the original led and shine a new led through the back of the old one. this also decreases the brightness to a nice level instead of lighting up your face blue (or whatever colour youre using) while youre playing.

[TJ_Kat]

I'm sorry, but I just found some of this kind of contradictory...

you should probably bridge that if you want your led to be bright enough.

...disconnect the positive leg of the original led and shine a new led through the back of the old one. this also decreases the brightness to a nice level instead of lighting up your face blue

Wouldn't just leaving the resistor in the circuit solve the brightness problem?