quick connects

[pezkore]

I will be wiring my control panel in the near future. I want the CP to be removable for transportation. Do I only need quick connects in order to do this? I have seen some wiring hookups that have plastic connectors in the middle of the wires so that you can disconnect there rather than disconnecting at the puttons/joysticks. What are these and do I need to use them?

[mastercave]

there are quick connects that connects onto the pushbutton tab and then there are butt connectors, i think thats the name, where you connect 2 ends of a wire. with the butt connectors, you would have to find some way to solder or connect the wire to the pushbutton tab anyways so i think it would be easier with the quick connects. either way you would be doing the same "push wire into connector, crimp" process.

[Infrasonic]

quick connects connect to each terminal on a switch, each switch has 2 terminals.  Each joystick has 4 switches each button has one.  in a 2 joystick 20 button setup that's 56 connections.  

I highly recommend using quick connects of the proper size (ie. 0.187/16-22ga female)  because they can be removed and securely installed without any tools.

Believe me, removing and installing 56 terminals is a little time consuming and should probably be only done once as in installation-should any part go wrong you can just pull out the affected terminals.

As for the harness in general, if you want to connect and disconnect all 28 switches quickly for like a modular setup, I recomend using some connectors.  Molex company is the only company that I can think of that makes low current connectors.  You can probably find connectors at an electronics store or an auto store.  Make sure that you can get both matching ends and that you can get those sides individually also.  The connector should typically have one wire per switch plus 1 wire per common (some interfaces have 2).  

[rampy]

quick disconnects are great/perfect for wiring to your microswitches/buttons/joysticks but would recommend some sort or multiples of molex style connectors as infrasonic recommended.

Another common way of approaching this is to use a true parallel port extension cord/plug and chop it in half (it needs to be the style where it runs all the wires from all the pins and not the ones that cheat to just what a printer needs to work)  Wire that up to a terminal block(s) or what have you and you've got a pretty wide, easy to disconnect, solution.

*shrug*
rampy