Question about extended wire length on ultimate io harness

[aldub516]

So I recently purchased a ultimarc ultimate io interface. Naturally I should've bought the extension pack,
As I cannot reach my player 1 side. Along with the io i bought rgb buttons and other controllers. My question is, I'm new to these crimps that pop into the black sleeves. For instance, the rgb buttons have 4 wires, which all click into the black sleeve to fit over pins. I assume i can unhook the wires from the io harness, crimp it to a longer wire, add another crimp to the end, and voila extension.. Only I'm not familiar with those crimps, what they're called, or sizes.. So, if you had an io controller with the 32 input harness, how would YOU go about extending wires.. I only need to do the 1 player first 4 wires so I'm not worried about time consumption. Also I need to double up the player one up down left right to go to a 4 way.. Any clean method of splitting these wires off the harness? Or Am I looking at skinning and splicing wires bootleg style. I'm currently on my phone shopping at a hardware store which is why I cannot research these crimps on my own. Thanks for the help!

[BobA]

If it already has connectors on both ends and you only need 4 wires extended cut them and splice a piece of wire between to extend their reach.  Takes a couple of crimps per wire but you only have a few to do.  You can use any crimp fastener to connect the wires or solder and heat shrink.

[aldub516]

My initial plan was to indeed just snip the wire in the middle and add an extension wire, crimping each of the ends together, I just was worried about damaging the harness the came with the Io
 But in retrospect all the wires are removeable from the
Harness anyway so I can always replace a mistake. Anyone know the standard gauge wire used in these harnesses?

[PL1]

Original harness is probably 24AWG stranded, but you can use 22 or 24AWG stranded. (avoid solid core wire unless you plan on soldering instead of crimping)

If you don't want to cut the original harness, you can just make an extension using a Male QD, wire, and a female QD. (Red is used for 18-22 AWG wire)



That approach requires only half the crimp points compared to using two butt-splices (below) and it's more forgiving if you mess up when fabricating the extension.   




Scott

[aldub516]

Sir, thank you for all the above suggestions.. How I never considered a simple male/female terminal extension is beyond me. Now I need to decide how anal I am about have the terminals showing, or if I should just go with the double ended gimmick you also suggested.. Thanks guys! Between both of u, problem solved.

[dkersten]

The connectors that connect to the ipac UIO are .1" or 2.54mm and they are commonly referred to as "DuPont connectors".  The main harness for the ipac has the .187" crimp connectors called "spade" or "Quick Disconnect" connectors.  Extending them with a male version to plug into the harness and then a female to plug into your switches is one way, or cutting off the connector on the ipac harness and just using a "butt connector" to extend it and then crimping on a new female spade is another.  You can also just cut and use a wire and 2 butt connectors.

For the LED's, you can cut and extend, but I found that if you only need 10 or 20 more centimeters, you can find packs of 30 or 40 individual 2.54mm extension cables made for arduino users.  Find the packs with the male on one end and female on the other, then just use 4 of them to extend one LED.  Saves you from cutting and crimping the wires.  I also found that taking 4 individual connectors and using a small piece of scotch tape, I could tape them into a 4pin plug, making it easier to plug into the ipac UIO. 

[aldub516]

once again, thank you for that input!! especially on the led extensions.
This is where im at thus far

[AndyWarne]

The connectors that connect to the ipac UIO are .1" or 2.54mm and they are commonly referred to as "DuPont connectors". 

Its true the Chinese seem to have adopted this name for these housings. Its strange because DuPont dont make connectors and never have. I think it came about as a "corruption" of DuBox which is the AMP trade name for these connectors.

I think I might need to either make it clearer on our site that an extension harness pack might be needed or maybe even bundle a pack with the board to avoid this issue.

Andy

[aldub516]

economically on your end, I'd feel odd saying you should throw in an extension harness with the kit.. But I would almost say that a lot of even slightly larger panels will not fare well with the single harness, especially when having to go around a trackball housing, or something like that. I will go ahead and just figure out a clean splice and clean up job, and play around with heat shrink for the first time. I shouldve just bought the extension while i was spending the other $450 lol I expected this issue, and understand its up to me to measure and see what i need. Im a happy customer as always.

I do have another question, and will ask it here instead of clogging up the board with threads..
Pertaining to heat shrink, ive never used it before.  I did a little research, but found it a little confusing as sizes go,considering widths, and shrink percent and so on.. With the classic rgb buttons, would you happen to know a proper size heat shrink i could use, to hold the 4 wires together and clean up the board? Or do you have any other good suggestions for cleaning up a board full of rgb button wires. The rgbs , as opposed to the button harness, are all super long lol. Heat shrink seems like fun and a productive way to clean up a board.Thinking i just bundle/fold up the wires and shrink them right down in their own bundle. I am nervous to start splicing wires and harnesses that came from ultimarc. I suppose i can just cut the rgb wires down once everything is in its permanent place, but that kills the purpose of buying pre-done wiring lol. So, heatshrink suggestions friends? And is an actual heat guy necessary, or will my girlfriends ray gun of a blow dryer work with patience?

[dkersten]

The problems with heat shrink are:
1) you have to plan ahead, it only works if the wires are already inside the heat shrink tube.  You can't just bundle up some wires in some kind of wrap and shrink it. 
2) heat shrink is stiff once shrunk, so it works best on straight runs only.  If you have to make a sharp bend, you are going to have a tough time.
3) while you can get around it with makeshift heat shields and just proper planning, the heat required to shrink it could potentially damage plastic components around it. 

That being said, if you are soldering the connections, heat shrink is a great way to insulate the connection, particularly if you have multiple wires and are bundling them together.  Ideally you want to stagger the solder joints so when you bundle it all up you don't have one huge lump in one spot, but rather spread the lumps over an inch or so.  Planning ahead and being careful with your heat are the two best pieces of advice when using heat shrink.  I can't tell you how many times I have soldered a joint and then went to push the heat shrink over it only to have the heat from the solder shrink it prematurely and have a difficult time getting the heat shrink in place.

And if you plan to solder your splices, take a few minutes to do some research on the best solder splice joints.  Most people will tin both ends and then push the two wires together and heat them for a second with the solder pen and call it a good joint when in fact that is the worst way to do it.  Tie the wires together so the copper is making good contact, then solder the connection, preferably while keeping tension on the joint.  Solder is not a great conductor (well, silver solder is decent, but most lead based are not)