Control Panel Wiring Question.

[DiskTwo]

Im working on my first Mame machine, and I noticed the Jamma harness doesn't have enough connectors for my buttons, so im adding some. I was told to just use a wire out of a Cat5 cable. So as I sit here in pain trying to unravel this stupid cable  I started to think...

The way the 4 pairs are spun together, it actually looks pretty nice. Plus the cable is more bendable, which would make for a much much nicer looking cable job if I was able to use this on ALL the buttons, and leave the pairs spun together and only untie the ends...

So if I were to do that, could I just (for each wire) cut the corrosponding wire coming from the Jamma Connector, and strip the end of the wire, as well as the wire from the cat5 cable, twist them together, and just heatshrink over them? And maintain a solid connection?

I know very little about wiring, so for all i know this wont work at all. Any advice would be greatly appriciated

[Paul Olson]

First of all, I wouldn't suggest doing it. Just zip tie the whole bundle of wire together every few inches, and it will be neat and tidy. If you insist on doing it, don't just twist the wires together. You can use butt connectors, but soldering would be the best choice. You may also want to go with thicker wire - like is already used on your harness. Cat 5 cable will work fine, but since it is so thin, the strands will break easier than a thicker wire.

I used cat 5 on my CP, but only because I wanted to use the rj45 connectors which are not needed with a standard setup.