Soldering a Jamma harness - there has to be an easier way

[JoyMonkey]

Okay I'll admit it; I suck at soldering. I make a mess of every soldering job I've gone near. But I find myself having to wire jamma (and non-jamma) connectors from time to time- a process that seems to require some amount of skill (all those little wires all so close to each other, all having to be soldered to little connectors, also all so close together).

Most of my arcade PCBs are not standard Jamma, so each one needs a seperate harness that needs to be wired differently.

Has anyone found a way to wire a connector without soldering? As you can imagine, I'm a big fan of crimping. Can I somehow crimp the wires onto the connectors? I'd imagine each one would need some kind of sleeve to cover the connection. Do 'sleeves' like this exist? Am I dreaming?

[OSCAR]

Step back for a minute...  spend some time to become proficient with soldering.  With a few hours of practicing good techniques, you will be soldering like a pro in no time.  It's a very handy skill to have in this hobby, you will never regret learning how to be handy with a soldering iron.  After that, you will be able to put together an professional looking (and functioning) adaptor in very little time.

As for your question, I am not aware of crimp terminals for connecting to a jamma fingerboard.

[IceCold]

With a few hours of practicing good techniques, you will be soldering like a pro in no time.

Would you care to explain some of these "good techniques".  I can solder okay, but it'd be nice to be able to do it better and faster.

[JoyMonkey]

Whoohoo!

I just tried out wiring a non-jamma Mr.Do connector without any soldering - and it works perfectly!  
I used a db25 printer cable, stripped enough of each wire to thread through the eyes of the jamma connectors and twisted them as tightly as I could. I shielded them with a small length of 1/16" shrink tubing and used a hair-dryer to shrink the tubing and tighten up the connections a little. I did this for video and power, enough to test out the method.

The printer cable's wires are pretty thin, but it seems to be enough to carry the video signal and the +5v and +12v from a power supply. I plugged the printer cable into a db25 data switcher (like this one) to see if it could be used to switch between PCBs. I checked everything with a multi-meter and all connections seemed to be going strong.

I hooked the whole lot up and powered on. I switched the data switch to Mr.Do and as if by magic, Mr.Do appeared on my monitor!

Tell me there's something wrong with this set-up; nothing ever goes right for me first time

[RandyT]

It'll probably work fine....for a while.  Once a little moisture gets inside and some corrosion starts, or it gets wiggled around a bit, you'll start doing the "which connection went loose?" shuffle .

Seriously, those contacts are huge in the grand soldering scheme of things.  Follow OSCAR's advice and practice until you become proficient at it.  It's not as hard as threading all those wires through the tabs and putting heat-shrink around them .


Here's a tip.  Put a little blob of solder on each one of the tabs you want to hook a wire to (not too much).  Then strip a short piece of insulation from each of the wires and put a little solder on each of them.  Then just place the wire onto the tab, apply some heat with the iron so it all flows together, leave it there long enough so everything is hot (but not too hot), pull the iron away while still holding the wire in place, wait 4 seconds and let go.  You should have a nice clean strong connection.

Now repeat 47 times and you will be a pro .

RandyT

[SirPoonga]

Also, I don't know if you use flux, but I do.  It helps me out alot to get the solder to go where I want it to go.

[micro571]

Shrink Tube question.  I always use a lighter to shrink it.  I used a hair dryer the first time but that was slow and annoying.  A lighter gets the job done in no time.  What do you guys use?

[Ken Layton]

As natural oxidation occurs on those contacts, you'll be plagued with nagging intermittent connections. I always solder the wires. I also use a cigarette lighter to shrink the heat shrink tubing.

[IceCold]

I always just use a lighter with the heat shrink tubing