Mysterioii

Just based on those two pics it seems to me that the actual color would just be a matter of personal preference (I'm not a huge pinball fan so I'm not sure if one is considered more authentic), and it actually looks to me just based on those pics that the orange is maybe a little too bright and is washing out some of the detail... maybe that's not true in real life, it's just how it looks to me there. But, I do see the little gaps between the LED segments on the red, and that bugs me....

Just an issue of authenticity or is there any element of improved visibility or brightness or anything?

Help a noob out please, on the top two on that page I can see that one is orange and one is red. What's the real difference with the bottom two? It shows less info there. I've never been a huge pinball fan but the table projects I've been seeing are getting me interested, it would be a great companion for an arcade cabinet. So I take it the orange DMD's are considered preferred/more authentic? Is it really worth the ~$100 difference?

Ah so in memory you're treating LEDs as binary, either full on or full off? Are you handling any PWM for these LEDs in your code or is that ONLY for the strips? I presumed each channel would have variable levels of intensity but if you're going with off/on then I see where you're coming from. I know what you mean about speed, that's why I said that it's good to have the flexibility there. I haven't used the strip in your example, the ones I have use a different chip, so I'm sure they're similar but non-identical. I probably need to go back and re-read the whole 27 page thread, I like stuff like this. I'm not a huge pinball fan and am just getting back into upgrading my arcade cabinet, but some of the pinball cabs I've been seeing have got me interested... Just one arcade cab running mame and some console emulators and one well-made pinball table running a nice assortment of tables would make for a pretty sweet game room... I don't have a ton of space but could probably squeeze a table in (one of these days... after I knock out about a dozen other projects...)

Sorry if this has been said before, I haven't read the entire thread because it's gotten pretty long... I am not a pinball person, wouldn't contactors and solenoids only need one bit each? Are you saving 8 bits per LED channel (so 8 bits of PWM dimming control for single color LEDs, 24 bits of full-color control for RGB LEDs)? Or are you only considering the LEDs to be on or off? I think I'm missing something, I'm not sure why the different types of devices are being treated differently if they have radically different memory requirements.

If for arrangement purposes you need to run each 1m strip back to your controller, then yes. All of the shift-register-based LED strips I've seen just dump the data lines off the end (they're manufactured in longer runs and just cut to length... as chriz99 pointed out 5m rolls are commonly available). In general they recommend additional power hookups every so often so you're not pushing the full amperage down the entire run of the strip but the data lines can just chain together. So with a little wiring from the end of one strip to the beginning of the next strip you should actually be able to drive that all with 2 data lines not 16. Good to have the flexibility though.

Does anybody by chance have a template for the Mameroom/North Coast Customs Ultimate Arcade II cabinet? Since it's a kit cabinet it seems like maybe someone would already have made a template for it (though I don't know how many people besides myself actually have one). Doesn't hurt to ask though!