Wiring up a control panel advice please

[Marky_1979]

Hi guys,

Im about to attempt to wire up my arcade control panel and have purchased a wiring kit from Ultimarc and was wondering if you guys could give me some tips on making it all look clean and getting it right. I have no real experience doing this and will be wiring up 3 admin buttons, 2 joysticks, 12 leaf switches and 3 pinball buttons on side of cab into an Ipac2.

[javeryh]

Daisy chain the grounds together to GND on the iPac and run wires to the individual nodes on the iPac from the NO prong on the switch.  I'm not sure what other advice I can give you... If you want to keep it neat, invest in some ties and the little sticky things that the ties run through, plot a course for the wires generally and then tie everything together...

[Encryptor]

Check out mountains wiring on his control panel in this thread.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=63629.msg673766#msg673766

He tells you where to get the stuff to do it in this thread.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=63629.msg674587#msg674587



Encryptor

[wooowman93]

dont look at mountains hes a miracle wireer hes like magic and dont try something as neat as him its really hard

[TelcoLou]

dont look at mountains hes a miracle wireer hes like magic and dont try something as neat as him its really hard

Very helpful advice (¬_¬)

[ivwshane]

I'd suggest looking at the various projects on this site. Everyone wires their cp differently so there should be plenty of ideas to pull from.

[fiscap]

There are many examples on the forums to explore. While I do agree that Mountain does an exceptional job at wiring, it would be very difficult for a novice to replicate - he did say he has 10+ years experience. I also wouldn't suggest the use of lacing cord since it is very difficult to change any wiring once it's been laced. That being said, it is possible for even a novice to obtain very good results keeping one rule of thumb in mind - take your time.

Some tips I would recommend are to use nylon wire ties and wire tie anchors (look like little 1" squares with holes to run the ties through). These will allow you to group wires running along similar paths together and to anchor them to your control panel. Both of these items are available at either Lowes or HD real cheap. The other recommendation I would make is to place your encoder at the central point of your controls and to run the wires from all the buttons and controllers to this point - tidying up the cables as you work your way back to the central point. Don't connect the wires to the encoder until you have the wires connected to the controllers and buttons, as well as the wires run down their respective paths to the encoder. This will allow you to take up all the slack, eliminating the need to conceal bunched up wires. During this process it would be best to only use one or two cable ties to secure the wires, allowing you the ability to easily identify each wire running to the encoder and make changes if necessary. Once you have confirmed all connections to the encoder to be correct, you can go back and add more cable ties to neaten up the job.

And by all means, follow javeryh’s advice and daisy chain the grounds – this will eliminate almost half the bulk of the wiring job.

Here is a sample of one of my control panel's from a couple of year's ago. I used terminal barrier strips for daisy chaining my grounds - more costly and time consuming, but equally as effective.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=52759.msg590901#msg590901

[Marky_1979]

Thanks for all your advice guys I will take my time and make sure its the best I can make it

[IreM72]

Hi

I want to order the ultimarc wiring kit, but can't find it to order on the ultimarc website. Can anyone help?

[Sir Headless VII]

It is on this page.

[IreM72]

Thanks