CPanel wiring harness?

[exo]

I built and wired my cpanel a few years ago using data mined from this site.  Its happs buttons wired to an ipac4 via usb.

in total there are 28 buttons and 4 4-way joysticks, so thats some 44 positive wires, and then the negative if my math is correct. 

I'd like to make the machine a bit more modular, thus easier to work on.  So i was thinking of trying to set it up similar to a car stereo wiring harness, where i can simply unplug it.  (excuse my terminology, i'm not sure what to call this type of setup, but I'm familiar with the term harness from car audio work).

I've never made one before, just spliced the hell out of pre-existing ones.  So I'm not sure what the difficulty level is of creating something like this.  I'm also not sure if there are harnesses designed to accommodate 44 wires, or if i should route the wires through two 22 'port' harnesses (again with the terminology).

I am sure this is common here, but I do know the terms well enough to search the board.  Any guidance would be extremely appreciated.  Thank ya much.

[cyapps]

Yes, I would call that a harness. A lot of people use printer parallel port cables which I believe is 24-25 wires.

I will be using cat5 ethernet cable but that limits you to 8 wires in each cable and I was going to use rj45 connectors to plug them in at a central area which the other side then goes to my keyboard encoder. It may be over doing it but I wanted each joystick to be on their own cable and each (7) players buttons will be on their own that way I can just unplug each (color coded) "zone" as needed.

[exo]

Ya, I'm not sure I'd want to use cat5 if I was limited to 8 wires.  Thats 6 cat5 connectors.... I don't have the tools to crimp cat5 cable either.

My main purpose in being able to unplug it is to remove the cpanel for transport, and just to have a cleaner inside.  I don't need to be able to disable certain players or anything.

Any other options?  Preferably something that doesn't require specialized tools?  Or, if tools are required - a setup that handles more than just 8 wires?  If I were to go the parallel cable route, what sort of raw materials would I get?

thanks guys.

[stan2323]

If I were to go the parallel cable route, what sort of raw materials would I get?

thanks guys.

If I were using parallel cable I would get a couple of parallel cables, cut them in half and use one end on the CP and one end on the cabinet.  Just make sure to get one end female and one male.  The only tools you would need is a wire stripper and if you tin the end of the wire after you strip it, a soldering iron.   

Stan

[exo]

Are the wires in the parallel cable color coded so that I can find the proper matches on either side, or do i just remove all the rubber/plastic housing and manually inspect which connection each wire goes to?

[stan2323]

Are the wires in the parallel cable color coded so that I can find the proper matches on either side, or do i just remove all the rubber/plastic housing and manually inspect which connection each wire goes to?

The project I did, a small CNC machine, I used a multi meter after I had stripped the wire to check continuity from the wire to the pin/socket.  Then I labeled each wire with the number of the pin/socket it went to.