Wire 2 buttons in a series

[lazarwulf]

Help !

I am working on an old arcade machine (Xevious), and i am trying to wire 2 buttons together.  Basically it has right and left hand buttons.  I want to be able to press either left or right , for P1 fire 1.  The old board was fried, so i replaced it with a jamma board.

If i try them separately, it works fine, but if i hook them up in a series, it only works if i press both buttons at the same time.  I would have thought this meant the buttons were in parallel. 

The ground wire is hooked to both buttons.  The signal wire is forked and 1 goes to each button.  If i have the blue wire to both buttons, it does not work unless i press both at the same time.  If i remove one, it works fine for the button that is still connected.


Do i need a diode across the non-ground wires or something?  I seriously cant figure this out, yet it seems so simple !!

Thanks in advance

[SavannahLion]

Parallel means if you press one or the other, it should activate.

Series means you must press both at the same time to complete the circuit.

If ground is daisy chained on both correctly, as it should, you cannot have a series connection.

The switch contacts are labeled COM, NO and NC.

Attach the same ground to COM on both switches and the blue wire to NO on both switches. That's a parallel circuit.

[lazarwulf]

Thanks that did it.

So I like to learn from everything, thats half the reason i do this.

What you said makes perfect sense, and now I get what I was doing wrong. I had plugged the blue wire into NC...( i didnt have my glasses on, and didnt realize i plugged into wrong one.  Should have known just by position )

So now what I dont understand, is why did it work with 1 plugged into NC ??

Thanks again.

[Thenasty]

cause NC completed the circuit.