Best way to connect 12 plasma button lights to Picade X Hat

Support
1

Hello,

I recently built a Picade using Pi4 and Picade X hat, and bartop case from AWUK. Initially it only had player 1 controls.

Player 1 has six buttons with Plasma lighting, which connect to the hack header on the Picade X. This works just fine.

Since then I have added a second player controls, also with Plasma lighting. I am trying to figure out how best to connect the 2nd player’s Plasma lights. The kit provides a 30cm plasma → dupont cable, but the Picade X HAT only has dupont pins (in the hack header) for a single plasma. In addition the Picade X HAT has a plasma connector right besider the hack header (I think it’s JST?).

Can I connect my second plasma chain to the hat’s JST plasma out, keeping the first plasma set connected to the hack header? If so I need to get a long JST->JST cable (like the 30cm one that comes with the 10-button kit).

Or is it better to daisychain the player 2 lights from the player 1 lights, making a 12 light chain, and continue only connecting via the hack header to Picade X HAT? That would also require a long JST cable.

I’ve not been able to find a long JST cable on the website. I did find this JST-SH cable - Qwiic / STEMMA QT compatible – Pimoroni but 20cm is a bit short, and I’m not sure the pin pitch is correct. Over at the Pi Hut I found JST-PH Jumper Assembly (4 Wire)– The Pi Hut and I guess I could make a cable from two of them soldered together, but again I’m not sure what pin pitch is needed for plasma.

thanks,
Paul

2

One option is to just make it all one long chain. Connect the out of the last one that is there now to the in on the first new on.
Then do a
`sudo nano /usr/bin/plasma’
and change the LIGHTS = 10 to how many you have now.

3

Thanks - yes, that seems a good option.
I’ll need an additional cable though, and the distance is about 25cm so it needs to be quite a long one. I’m having trouble finding where to buy the right cable for this.

4

I was wondering if that might be an issue?
Hunting around all I find is the cables you already linked too?

5

Do you have any extra lights / cables or did you use them all?
If you have an extra cable you could just cut it in half and solder some wire in the middle to make it longer. Do one wire at a time and you won’t mix them up.

6

Sadly not, I got two sets of six, and they’re all in use!

7

Joining two cables is what I thought of when I saw these at the Pi hut:

I’m just not sure if the connector is the right size or not.
But, they’re cheap enough, maybe I should just buy two and see if they will do, not much to lose if they’re wrong.

8

Unfortunately, they don’t list that info on a lot of stuff, just if its 2 or 3 pin etc.
E-mail support and they may be able to give you that info?
Contact Us for Raspberry Pi Technical Support – Pimoroni

9

Done. Thanks for your help!