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Author Topic: Ground Limits?  (Read 996 times)

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CPickler

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Ground Limits?
« on: April 04, 2005, 07:24:05 pm »
My buttons, joysticks, and trackball arrived today, and I was getting ready to put them on a test piece of plywood to make sure everything would fit nicely when I thought of two items.

1.  Is there a way to hook up two cables when using a quick disconnect piece?  When I say this I mean, like if you are daisy-chaining all the grounds so you have one wire coming in and one wire leaving from the same connector on the switch.  Is it possible to fit both of those in a standard female .125 quick disconnect piece?

2.  If you are running a 4 player control panel with 40 buttons, 5 joysticks, and a trackbal, can one ground daisy-chained between all of those buttons really handle that much?  I mean, I know optimally you should run a unique ground from every switch, but that becomes a nightmare.  Should I run like 5 different sets of grounds, or will the 1 be enough?

3.  (Yes I know I said I only thought of two, but I just thought of another)  I plan on making this CP useable with a cabinet I plan on building in the future with a larger monitor.  Therefore, I want to be able to disconnect the CP and be able to move it to another cabinet in the future.  What are your recommendations for this?  Acquire a few molex connectors?

Also, where if anywhere would soldering be preferable or advantageous?

Thanks for all the continued advice and help.  I really appreciate the assistance in making this building process much more fun and less painful.

GGKoul

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Re: Ground Limits?
« Reply #1 on: April 04, 2005, 07:27:25 pm »
1. Yes

2. Yes, Daisy-chain grounds

3. DB25 (printer or parallel cables)

NoOne=NBA=

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Re: Ground Limits?
« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2005, 07:36:09 pm »
Ideally you should run all the grounds on a single daisy-chain, but with BOTH ends hooked to the ground terminal.
That way if one wire breaks, it doesn't take any buttons out with it.
It will continue to ground ALL the buttons/sticks from the separate ends.
If two wires break, everything between those two breaks will be dead, but should be an easy fix.

Alot of games in the arcades actually used TWO complete loops to ground.
That required FOUR total breaks, and BOTH wires had to break in the same two places to take anything out.
The chances of that actually occurring were pretty slim.

CPickler

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Re: Ground Limits?
« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2005, 07:50:33 pm »
So should 20 gauge wire be sufficient?

Also, can you fit two wires inside a single female quick disconnect piece or do I need to buy special quick disconnects to handle multiple wires?

NoOne=NBA=

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Re: Ground Limits?
« Reply #4 on: April 04, 2005, 08:05:13 pm »
20 gauge should be fine for a home system.
I use 28 gauge CAT-5 wire, and haven't had any problems with it--even on my modular system.

CPickler

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Re: Ground Limits?
« Reply #5 on: April 04, 2005, 08:09:03 pm »
awesome, thanks

NoOne=NBA=

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Re: Ground Limits?
« Reply #6 on: April 04, 2005, 08:16:02 pm »
Oops.
The CAT-5 I have is 24 gauge.

I have used 28 gauge, but it was for 9-pin (Atari/Commodore/Genesis-style) connectors.
I didn't have any problem with that either though.

Just make sure that the wire you buy will work in the disconnects with two strands of it.
If a single strand is a little too loose, you can double it over before crimping it.
If two strands won't fit, you'll have a hard time daisy-chaining.

CPickler

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Re: Ground Limits?
« Reply #7 on: April 04, 2005, 08:17:56 pm »
yeah the two strands not fitting is my concern

SteveJ34

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Re: Ground Limits?
« Reply #8 on: April 04, 2005, 11:06:18 pm »
(2) wire strands should fit just fine into a .187 or .250 disconnect assuming you are using 20-22 guage wire....


CPickler

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Re: Ground Limits?
« Reply #9 on: April 04, 2005, 11:59:53 pm »
cool, thanks.

Also, I ordered all the connectors from Happ controls, and I went to Home Depot tonight.  Found everything I ordered (except the wire) for much cheaper.  And I could have had it tonight.

Ohh well... live and learn.