Wiring Questions

[clickaus]

Hey Guys,
I am building my first arcade atm and I just have a couple of questions about wiring
I am wiring everything up to an Ipac 2

Here is a pic of the cp (unwired)



Question 1
On the ipac I have noticed that there is 2 spots for ground wires. I was wondering does the ground have to start in one side and end up in the other side once I daisy chain everything. Or can I have to separate ground wires going out from the ipac and end up on the last buttons I wire.

Question 2
I have a four joystick with 2 buttons beside it as well as 2 x 8way joysticks with 6 buttons each. Do I just join the four joystick wire to the player 1 (8 way joystick) wires.

Question 3
I have installed 2 pinball buttons on each side of the cp(2 flippers, 1 tilt, 1 fire), Can I wire them into the ipac at button 7 and 8 on the player 1 side and then wire the other 2 buttons on the other side into 7 and 8 spots on the 2 player side.
Will this work

Question 4
I have an happ trackball and it has two green ground wires with a insulated ring joiner. Can I just connect it to one of the joystick mounting bolts for grounding or even one of the bolts on the trackball mounting plate.



Hopefully I haven't confused anyone
Any help would be great as I didn't receive any documentation with the ipac

[DillonFoulds]

Answer 1: Both grounds are tied together, personally i split the buttons up in half and run each half of the control pnael per ground, daisy chained.

Answer 2: Daisy chain the 4 way buttons with the 8ways for player one, like the grounds. This will allow either joystick to use the same inputs, and save you time in the long run, when it comes to configuring emulators.

Answer 3: Daisy chain these in with the player one buttons (1, 2, 3, and 4 as per needed.) same as answer two.

Answer 4: Daisy chain all grounds with prong 3 of your power cable that goes to the wall. You don't really need to ground trackballs, in my opinion, but it may help prevent the static build-up from the ball blowing any PCBs. Purely your choice though. I do recommend you ground the coin door, though! Seems they can get some weird static build-up.

[clickaus]

Answer 1: Both grounds are tied together, personally i split the buttons up in half and run each half of the control pnael per ground, daisy chained.

Answer 2: Daisy chain the 4 way buttons with the 8ways for player one, like the grounds. This will allow either joystick to use the same inputs, and save you time in the long run, when it comes to configuring emulators.

Answer 3: Daisy chain these in with the player one buttons (1, 2, 3, and 4 as per needed.) same as answer two.

Answer 4: Daisy chain all grounds with prong 3 of your power cable that goes to the wall. You don't really need to ground trackballs, in my opinion, but it may help prevent the static build-up from the ball blowing any PCBs. Purely your choice though. I do recommend you ground the coin door, though! Seems they can get some weird static build-up.

Thanks Dillon just the info I was after 
I'm glad my questions made some sense

[BobA]

Answer 1: Both grounds are tied together, personally i split the buttons up in half and run each half of the control pnael per ground, daisy chained.

I differ on this one.   I use the  loop method going out from ground one to all the buttons and joystick switches and looping back to ground two.  This gives you fault protection in your circuit.   If you get a bad connection in the loop everything will still work as there is still a ground to every switch.

[kop]

I use the  loop method going out from ground one to all the buttons and joystick switches and looping back to ground two.  This gives you fault protection in your circuit.   If you get a bad connection in the loop everything will still work as there is still a ground to every switch.

That's great advice!    Would never have thought to do it that way.

I'll be sure to use this when wiring up my CP.

[Nephasth]

Answer 1: Both grounds are tied together, personally i split the buttons up in half and run each half of the control pnael per ground, daisy chained.

I differ on this one.   I use the  loop method going out from ground one to all the buttons and joystick switches and looping back to ground two.  This gives you fault protection in your circuit.   If you get a bad connection in the loop everything will still work as there is still a ground to every switch.

To each his own I guess. But if there is some sort of fault in the daisy chain, everything at the fault and onwards would not work, which makes it pretty easy to locate anyway. Back up grounds end up disguising problems.

[ragnar]

Answer 1: Both grounds are tied together, personally i split the buttons up in half and run each half of the control pnael per ground, daisy chained.

I differ on this one.   I use the  loop method going out from ground one to all the buttons and joystick switches and looping back to ground two.  This gives you fault protection in your circuit.   If you get a bad connection in the loop everything will still work as there is still a ground to every switch.

... depending on where the break is.

[BobA]

Thats true.  If the break is at the switch terminal it will not work but anywhere else in the chain the ground will loop back.  Anyway a break at the switch terminal is easy to identify and fix.

[DillonFoulds]

While BobA is dead on about the grounding loop being fault redundant, I am of the school of thought that it would hide potential issues down the road.

Personally, I just like the idea of load balancing the grounds. It's not like we're dealing with large voltages, or even hazardous amounts, it still seems nicer to split up the control panel in my eyes.

But in the end, it's down to whatever you're most comfortable doing. Put in the extra 15cm of wire and loop it all the way around if you want. It's your choice. Practicality of either application makes little difference, if your crimping is solid.

[CheffoJeffo]

I'm with BobA on the grounding issue -- keeps the most stuff working until you get a chance to look at it, at which point you just disconnect one side of the ground loop to find out where the problem is.