really random wiring question, but with a great drawn description

[struby]

ok, so here is my awesome drawing, as you can see...time consuming, so the TB is trackball
GT1 and 2 are ground terminals 1 and 2 respectively, and the black and red wires are both ground wires which from the drawing, clearly go through all of player 1-4's button, joystick, start, and coin microswitches, but then in the middle, in my three misc buttons, I have issues with symmetry here, kinda, well it's hard to explain, but for my own personal beef, I want them both to go through that middle button, will that be bad in any way at all, if yes, then lemme know and I guess I can deal with it:

this or i can make it all one loop from ground terminal 1 to ground terminal 2 through all the buttons, whichever works best for me, thanks

[spacies]

 
 

Nice pic.

You won't have a conflict with both GTs going through the button.

Man, I can't wait to see you machine after that drawing!     

[Spaz Monkey]

I would start at GT1, go though all the buttons and stop at GT2.  It would keep your symmetry and not do any extra wiring.

[polaris]

i would avoid crossing circuits if at all possible, it may not have any effect but its unecessary to find out, i appreciate your design ethic (its evident in the standard of your design work  - sorry just my little joke) of symmetry but keep the nice work for whats gonna be seen, the top of the cp wont be symmetrical unless p2 is set for a left hander so why worry about the ground route.

[danny_galaga]

hmmm, well this is clearly a searing indictment of the modern. a juxtaposition of ideals if you will. the red and the black, opposing forces of nature yet only together do they make the whole. a stand off of philosophies is evident, as is moral dilemma. a truly transcendental piece by Struby, whose work grows from strength to strength. klee and mondrian rolled into one!

[Fozzy The Bear]

or i can make it all one loop from ground terminal 1 to ground terminal 2 through all the buttons, whichever works best for me, thanks

You dont need to loop it back to anything...... Your ground doesn't have to be a loop.  Just feed the first button from the ground the feed the second button from the first, then third from the second etc etc.... the last button in the chain doesn't need to loop back to the ground terminal. In fact if you do do it that way, it makes it impossible to later find where any possible break in the cable has occoured.

If you just chain them, then you know where any break has happened because all buttons beyond that point will be dead.

As for your desire for symmetry and pretty cables..... WHY!!! nobody is ever going to see it apart from you. Who cares!! Any guest you have playing it won't give a damn what your cables look like, 99.9% of the time they won't want even see them.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[struby]

haha well thanks everyone, but I'm not quite sure I followed, I just get it in my head that if one ground wire goes through more buttons than the other, that side will suffer performance, I have personal issues lol, but will either design be fine, one giant loop from terminal 1-2 or both loops going through that one middle button?

[tommy]

hmmm, well this is clearly a searing indictment of the modern. a juxtaposition of ideals if you will. the red and the black, opposing forces of nature yet only together do they make the whole. a stand off of philosophies is evident, as is moral dilemma. a truly transcendental piece by Struby, whose work grows from strength to strength. klee and mondrian rolled into one!

You're one crazy guy, aren't you? 

[n3m3s1s]

If you loop the wire back to ground after the last button it will make the circuit more resilient. If the wire breaks between 2 buttons you still get the ground to all the buttons on the loop - half from the start of the loop and half from loopback end.

As for making it impossible to tell where a break is with a loop I think Fozzy is a little off. For a button to stop working with a loop the wire must break either side of that button (or the switch must pack up) and so only that button would stop workng.

Also you could just disconnect the end of the loop for fault testing.

Just my 2p worth - please dont be angry with me Fozzy