Wiring Advice

[Drakkorcia]

Looking for wiring tips for a clean install when an LED chain is involved. Would you wire the LED chain to the buttons first, or wire the joystick and buttons first with the LED chain after? My first cabinets were pretty sloppy with all wires from both chains just tied together but when I would need to rewire something it was a mess. I would like to tie the LED chain and the joy/button chains separately as well as make them neat and easy to manage. I also have 22 buttons/30 wires including joys so it can be cumbersome. Would appreciate any tips/pics that help me become better at managing my control panel wiring.

[PL1]

Several questions that might help us provide more detailed advice that you might find useful:

1. Are you using RGB LEDs or single color LEDs?

2. Will they be always-on (hardwired) or animated? (LED controller)

3. Are you using pre-fab harnesses or are you cutting/stripping/crimping your own harnesses or are you doing a combination where you use pre-fab daisy-chains with custom signal wires?

4. Which encoder and/or LED controller are you using?
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One way to keep the wires neat is to use velcro wraps to keep the wires in a bundle as you build the harness.

You may find some useful suggestions in this post and the 8 replies following it.

More generic advice here.


Scott

[Drakkorcia]

Single color LED's and individual wires going into an i-pac 2.The main issue I have right now is after wiring my 12v LED daisy chain there are several female disconnects still left over and I end up having to bunch them up and tie them but it is just more wire mess. I don't have any more buttons so I wanted to know if it is safe to just cut the excess off, and if so, what's a good way to terminate the ends?

[PL1]

Single color LED's and individual wires going into an i-pac 2.

Hard-wired single color LEDs with no controller is the easiest LED option.   

What are you using for a power supply?
- I wouldn't recommend driving more than a total of 120mA via the 5v pins on an IPac.  That's how much current the 6 LEDs in the optical circuits of a trackball and spinner would draw.
- If you're running 12v LEDs with 5v, they will be a little less bright, last a lot longer, and draw a lot less current -- 3.7 mA  per button LED in my setup here with an additional 11 ohm current limiting resistor or 5.83 mA per button LED in this setup without the additional current limiting resistor, compared to the typical 20 mA.  YMMV.

How many LEDs total?
- What amount of current are they rated for? (20mA each?)

The main issue I have right now is after wiring my 12v LED daisy chain there are several female disconnects still left over and I end up having to bunch them up and tie them but it is just more wire mess. I don't have any more buttons so I wanted to know if it is safe to just cut the excess off, and if so, what's a good way to terminate the ends?

No problem cutting off unused QDs at the end of the daisy-chain.

If you need three QDs, cut the wire at the red where it comes out of the third QD.
- No special termination is needed.
- You can use the leftover green part for other LEDs.

Wire ____   _____   _____   _____   _____   _____
                \/          \/          \/          \/          \/          \
               QD        QD        QD         QD        QD        QD


Scott

[Drakkorcia]

I use the 12v LED wiring harness arcade shops sell (I buy from tmolding a lot) with a molex on one end and the positive and negative chains. It plugs into the molex on a PC power supply and has worked fine. LED power is separate from the i-pac. Then for the button and joy microswitches I use a black (ground) daisy chain and the 1 meter i-pac wires for the positive (or active). So if I can cut off the extra unneeded qd's on the daisy chains that will clean up a lot of bundled mess.

The attached images are the LED harness I use and the ground chain and 1 meter wiring for the buttons. The 1 meter wires are individual so I can use only as many as needed, and the chains have leftover which I want to remove. I just want to make sure cutting them won't ruin the chain or otherwise short anything so I wanted to know if I should heat shrink or put a piece of electrical tape on the cut ends.

[PL1]

I use the 12v LED wiring harness arcade shops sell (I buy from tmolding a lot) with a molex on one end and the positive and negative chains.

That Molex will provide more than enough mA to power your LEDs.   

the chains have leftover which I want to remove. I just want to make sure cutting them won't ruin the chain or otherwise short anything so I wanted to know if I should heat shrink or put a piece of electrical tape on the cut ends.

The clear insulating covers on the power daisy-chain will do a fine job, no need to add heat shrink or electrical tape.

If you look at the daisy-chains in this pic, you can see that the wire that was coming out of the left side was cut just above the QD crimp.
- I slid the clear insulators up the wire so you can see the wire cut better.


Scott

[Drakkorcia]

Yeah, that's perfect. If you cut the excess right at the qd on its last button it will be held in place right there with the qd and its shield. Thank you for the visual and for the advice.