First time Control Panel wiring help and advice.

[swirlee]

Hello friends, after much procrastination I'm ready to wire up my arcades control panel and would love your help and advice for how to do so on a few key issues.


For starters here is the finished design for my control panel - 2 players, 6 button layout, one trackball and some admin buttons. 



These are the lighted LED buttons and standard 8-way joysticks from Paradise Arcade, Ultimarc U-Trak pearl with USB interface and I purchased the Mini-Pac with button and trackball wiring harnesses. I think it might be redundant to have the mini-pac trackball wiring harness and the trackball USB interface, but I'm not sure and that comes into play in my questions below.

1. Quick Disconnects
I need to buy a bunch of male and female quick disconnects and I believe the size the pushbuttons and LED tabs use is .187"? Ordering this type of thing on Amazon is a bit confusing as sometimes the product page doesn't list the tab size just the AWG and I'm not very knowledgeable here. Can anyone link me to the most applicable male and female disconnects to use as well as what gauge wire I should be using?

2. Ground Wiring
I did buy a couple daisy chain ground kits for the pushbuttons, but I was wondering if I had to run separate grounds for the LED wiring or can I tap into the pushbuttons ground wiring? This is probably a total noob question.

3. Trackball Movement and Wiring
As I mentioned earlier I think I might have bought 2 different methods for connecting my trackball in error -- the Mini-Pac trackball wiring harness and the trackball USB interface. I like the idea of the mini-pac wiring harness so everything on the control panel flows through one USB but I am not sure how it connect to the trackball. The terminal at the end of the trackballs wires and the mini-pac trackball wiring harness terminal are both female. Seems a bit strange, am I supposed to splice and match up the wires on the harness and trackball? Not much of a time saver this wiring harness is then. So I also have the trackball USB interface. I plugged this on for the first time the other day and it "worked" but something is wrong. When I pull the ball down the mouse cursor tracks up and to the left at a 45 and when I push the ball up it tracks down and to the right at 45. Whats going on here? Is there something to calibrate? Should the movement be inverted? It definitely shouldn't be tracking at 45 degree angles. So which should I use, the trackball wiring harness or the USB? 


I read through my questions and they confuse even myself, but this is as straight forward as I can ask these questions given my limited knowledge so if anything I said is confusing or needs more info please let me know.   

THANKS!

   

[mgb]

Keep your led wiring and your switch wiring separate. Don't use the switch commons for led negative.
You can save some time, money and hassle by buying a jamma harness and just cutting off the board connection end.

Everytime this question comes up, this is my answer because it makes for a very neat wiring job.
All ends are already on.
 https://www.jammaboards.com/store/jamma-harnesses-en/#/product/127

[thomas_surles]

You should label your wires with some tape or something. I wish I did.

[swirlee]

Keep your led wiring and your switch wiring separate. Don't use the switch commons for led negative.
You can save some time, money and hassle by buying a jamma harness and just cutting off the board connection end.

Everytime this question comes up, this is my answer because it makes for a very neat wiring job.
All ends are already on.
 https://www.jammaboards.com/store/jamma-harnesses-en/#/product/127

Ok, so if I'm understanding you correctly and if I go this route, after I cut the wires on the blue harness side I am left one side of this bunch of wires that are bare and the other with what looks like female quick disconnects? So those female disconnects would connect to the microswitches and then I would need male quick disconnects to attach at the end of each wire I cut so it can connect to the female end of the mini-pac wiring harness? Confusing question I know, confusing myself. 

Sorry as you can tell, I need to have it explained like I am 5.

Any suggestions for my trackball issue as well?

Thanks!

[mgb]

I'm sorry, I didn't realize the mini-Pac had the harness like that.
Personally, I would mount the mini-Pac somewhere on the underside of the control panel
And just use that harness right to the switches and be dine with it.
If that's not possible, using the jamma harness method, you can connect the open ended jamma harness wires
to the mini-Pac harness, a few different ways.
You can cut the quick connects off the mini pac harness and butt splice them to the open jamma harness wires
Or you can use a European wiring strip like this
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/27-5985?scode=GS401&catargetid=530004080000291081&cadevice=m&gclid=CJbQ95bTs8ECFaNAMgodpVAAwQ

On mine, I have a regular Ipac so it has screw terminals. I made up a harness for each player control and went from the Ipac (on the cabinets inner side wall) to molex connectors and then to my control panel via a hacked jamma harness.

As far as your trackball wiring, yeah it looks like you bought more than needed.
I would just use the mini pac trackball wiring and save the USB interface for another project or something.

[DeLuSioNal29]

For the trackball moving strangely part:  Do you have a pic of the underside of the control panel?  It's possible you mounted it incorrectly.

As far as quick connect terminals go, I use these.  But you can find them a lot cheaper here. (look for FDV1-187).  Also the ratcheting crimper is a must in my opinion.  Nice and solid crimps! (RIC1).

D