This is a forked version of LWCloneU2 by cithraidt, with improvements to that project's ledwiz.dll replacement specifically designed for virtual pinball cabinet users. This fork doesn't have any changes to the Arduino firmware; all changes are on the Windows side.

The original LWCloneU2 was mostly Arduino firmware, but it also happened to include a nice drop-in replacement DLL for the ledwiz.dll that ships with the commercial LedWiz hardware. The manufacturer's DLL provides a simple software interface for enumerating LedWiz devices and sending commands to the device. The replacement DLL in this project provides the same software interface, and uses the same USB protocol to communicate with the LedWiz (or other) device hardware, so it's a simple plug-and-play replacement for the manufacturer's DLL.

Why would you want to replace the manufacturer's DLL? Several reasons:

• This version is open-source. The manufacturer's is proprietary closed-source.

• This version is multi-threaded. USB I/O is done on a background thread so that it never stalls the calling program. The original manufacturer's DLL makes the calling program wait for USB I/O to complete, which can cause video stutter in games like Future Pinball.

• This version has some pin cab-related improvements and bug fixes (see below).

The new DLL is compatible with real LedWiz hardware, as well as some alternative output controllers designed for visual pinball cabinets, specifically the Pinscape Controller and Zebsboards.com ZB Output Control. It's actually better at controlling real LedWiz hardware than the manufacturer's DLL, because it has a workaround for a serious firmware bug in the LedWiz hardware that can cause erratic behavior with the original manufacturer's DLL, plus it has threaded USB I/O that doesn't stall the calling program while USB commands are being sent.

Summary of changes vs the original cithraidt version:

• Better compatibility with the manufacturer's DLL. cihraidt's original ledwiz.dll replacement faithfully implements the documented LedWiz API, but it has some slight differences in its ad hoc behavior compared to the manufacturer's version, such as the order of device enumeration. Some third-party pin cab software that uses the LedWiz interface happens to be sensitive to some of these details. Strictly speaking, that kind of dependency on undocumented behavior is a bug in the third-party software, but the software in question is closed source, and the people who wrote it aren't going to fix it. This version of the DLL emulates some of that ad hoc behavior more precisely and so is more widely compatible with buggy client software.

• LedWiz hardware bug workarounds. The real LedWiz has a serious bug in its firmware related to USB message timing that makes it behave erratically when the PC sends USB commands too quickly. (This isn't an inherent USB timing limitation or a Windows driver issue, as many people believe. It's purely a bug in the LedWiz firmware. Other devices, such as Pinscape, ZB Output Control, and LWCloneU2-based devices, don't suffer from the problem.) This version of the DLL works around this timing bug in the LedWiz hardware by throttling the command rate to ensure a minimum 10ms interval between commands. The throttling is only used when real LedWiz hardware is detected; when other devices are recognized, commands are sent as quickly as the client software generates them.

• Pinscape Controller support. The original manufacturer's DLL crashes when a Pinscape devices is attached with its keyboard input interface enabled. This version works happily with all Pinscape device configurations.

• Access to more than 32 Pinscape ports. This version lets ledwiz.dll clients access all ports on a Pinscape device with more than 32 ports, by enumerating additional "virtual" LedWiz units to represent the additional ports. The virtual LedWiz units are numbered consecutively after the actual unit number assigned to the Pinscape device. For example, if a Pinscape device is assigned to LedWiz unit #8, and has 64 ports, it will appear to software as units #8 and #9. Unit #9 represents the physical ports from 33 to 64. This is completely automatic; no configuration is needed to make this happen.

• ZB Output Control support. This version recognizes ZB Output Control devices (zebsboards.com), which use a different USB Vendor ID (VID) than the original LedWiz.

New LED Tester: The project also includes NewLedTester, a Windows GUI program that lets you see attached LedWiz units and turn the output ports on and off manually. This can be helpful when testing a new setup.

Building: The Visual Studio project for building the DLL has been updated to VS 2017.

LWCloneU2

A firmware for Atmel AVR microcontroller for controlling LEDs or Light Bulbs via USB and a Joystick/Mouse/Keyboard Encoder.

The device is compatible with the LED-WIZ controller on the USB protocol level and thus can be used with many existing software. Additionally the firmware allows to add panel support, i.e. up to 4 yoysticks, 1 mouse, 1 keyboard and more. That is with one board you can get an input encoder and an LED output controller perfectly suited for MAME.

The LWCloneU2 project contains a compatible driver DLL "ledwiz.dll" replacement that fixes some bugs of the original one and does not block your main application, i.e. the I/O is fully asynchronous.

• Custom Breakout Board with ATMega32U2
• Arduino Leonardo (ATMega32U4)
• Arduino Mega 2560 (tested with Rev. 3)
• Arduino Uno Rev. 2/3 (untested)

In order to build all this, you need a recent toolchain for AVR microcontroller, e.g. the 'AVR Toolchain 3.4.2-1573' from Atmel or the one that is bundled with the Atmel AVRStudio.

Get the sources from the Git repository, then do a 'git submodule update --init' in order to get the required LUFA (USB framework) sources. Then a 'make' should build the firmwares for all supported platforms.

There are project files for Visualstudio 2008 Express and Visualstudio 2012 Express. The VS 2012 solution supports creating a 64 bit DLL. [Correction: The build has been updated to VS 2017 -mjr, Oct 2018]