Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: GroovyTuesdaY on February 17, 2004, 02:52:59 am
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I am looking for an alternative to daisy chaining the negative wires for my CP. If anyone knows of a product that will act as a terminal for all the negatives to connect to, could you please list it here and possibly some pictures. I have just had bad luck with daisy chaining in the past and trying to track down and the fix the culpret is just no fun.
Thanks for any tips or advice :)
groovy~~
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Daisy chaining is about it.
Troubleshooting can be tought.
If you want to make something better have fun. Maybe a strip of screw terminals that combine into a ground.
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Thats kinda what i was thinking, as far as terminal solution of some sort, but im not really up to snuff on my electronics parts, so im hoping someone with some electrical experience may have a good idea.
g~ :)
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If you do a ground LOOP rather than just connecting it all to one wire, then troubleshooting is EASY.
To do a ground loop, daisy chain your wire out from the encoder, to each switch, and then back into the encoder.
Here is the beauty of this method. One break in the wire (or bad connection), will not take the whole mess down with it. You can open up a control panel that has the ground properly looped and cut the ground wire in some random location and it will STILL WORK. Of course cutting it in two places will kill it.
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Let me better explain what i am thinking on this one. I kind of want to get away from using crimps on two wires joining together. I found that i was crimping too hard or not enough and getting bad connections. It was starting to really piss me off lol. So, i figure if i can just use a crimp on the end that connects to the switch negative, then it might leave me with less headaches. I hope this makes sense. :-\
I seem to have better luck with the crimping of one wire into the quick disconnect, then i do with two.
groovy~
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Oh, in that case you can just connect all your resulting ground wires together to something conductive, and just run one wire from that to your encoder.
For example. Take an old cast off extension cord, cut yourself a six or 8 inch section, and then strip off all the plastic so you just have a section of wire. Take a small piece of wood, and affix said wire with a pair of screws so it is stretched out full length. Then you can solder all your grounds there (or twist them on if you want to be ghetto), and then run one wire from there to your encoder.
But that is actually more work, and more headaches than properly using quick disconnects.
An alternate strategy is to use a combination of splice/solder and quick disconnects. Where each disconnect only has one wire going in, but that wire has a wire soldered on right below it.
Heck, half the time I don't even use quick disconnects on my grounds, I will often just solder my entire ground loop (which is largely unlikely to EVER have to be altered), and only use the disconnects on the inputs.
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I have no idea where you would get one but on the phone systems I work on the ground terminal is just like a regular screw terminal block but it is all metal instead of plastic so as you connect each wire to it's own terminal and screw them down they all become connected. Like I said, no idea where you'd get one though.
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Actually, thinking about my last post.... You could just buy a regular plastic terminal block, run all your wires from the buttons to their own terminal on one side of the block and then daisy chain all the terminal points on the other side of the block together. Although it'll have the same effect as normal daisy chaining with crimps you're using the screw terminals instead.
I might even try that myself.
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How about get some solder disconnects rather than the crimp type? Or the crimp type which don't have the coloured insulation - you could crimp and then solder these to ensure a good connection.
I just wired my IPAC to some Molex connectors, and crimpted + soldered the molex pins to make sure of a good solid connection :)
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Here's a pic of my setup.
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Here's a pic of my setup.
OldSkool:
That's EXACTLY what I did with my grounds. Bought this from RatShack:
(http://www.radioshack.com/images/ProductCatalog/ProductImage/274/274-678.jpg)
http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&product%5Fid=274-678 (http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&product%5Fid=274-678)
Art
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You want a Square-D grounding block.
Check this old thread: http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=792;start=msg4636#msg4636
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I just solder all the connections straight onto the switches.
It makes it a little tougher if you "redesign" your control panel, but eliminates all the "iffy" connections you can get with the quick disconnects.
They are called quick disconnects for a reason.
They are designed to be disconnected/reconnected quickly.
This is a good thing for arcade CP's because it allows the operator to replace worn out/broken switches quickly, and easily.
For a home CP, this is alot less of an issue, so I opted for the more permanent connection of solder joints.
I have TRIED to get bad connections using the solder method, and never accomplished it.
I intentionally daisy-chained all my ground connections by putting a lump of solder on the ground terminal, and then melting through the insulation on the ground wire and shoving it into place with the soldering iron.
I am using 28 gauge wire, so the insulation isn't very thick; but I have gotten ZERO bad connections using this "highly discouraged by anyone knowledgable about soldering" method on all the CP's I've wired up in the last 20+ years.
It's quick....it's ugly....it's smelly....but it's very reliable.
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This may be an ignorant question, but why would you NOT want to daisy chain? I can't really think of anything better about running seperate grounds for each switch. Daisy chaining the ground seems to me the cheapest, fastest, most reliable and makes it easy to identify a point of failure. I'm in no way an electrician, but I was just wondering.
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I think a ground loop is the best way. its easy, even if 1 wire is messed up it wont affect anything
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I've used these two products in the past. Pretty easy to setup.
Dual Row 8 Position Barrier Strip
http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F011%5F003%5F009%5F000&product%5Fid=274%2D670
8 Position Jumper
http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F011%5F003%5F009%5F000&product%5Fid=274%2D650
The jumper slips onto one side of the barrier strip and connects all the points, then I drilled a hole on the jumber strip and connected a wire to it and the ground.
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Get a better crimper and you will never have another bad crimp.
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Would a wire nut work? Just strip about 1/2 an inch on each wire, twist them all together and screw on an electrical wire nut.
Not elegant, but it should work pretty well.
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Get a better crimper and you will never have another bad crimp.
LOL, thats a bunch of crap lol. My crimper was 23.99 and was highly recommended over all the others by an actual electrician , so i do not think a better crimper will solve my troubles. Sorry eightbit, nice try though :)
groovY~
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Would a wire nut work? Just strip about 1/2 an inch on each wire, twist them all together and screw on an electrical wire nut.
Not elegant, but it should work pretty well.
Not a bad idea, but i does stir some other ideas in my mind. I will have to play with them in my head a bit. If i come up with something i will post it here.
g~
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I just use a pair of pliers for crimping. I'm cheap what can I say? ;D
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Crimping shouldn't be such a nightmare. Just use 22 guage wire and the nice .087 quick connects and you should be good to go. I've built tons of control panels and haven't had any issues with iffy connections. Silly wiring mistakes, yes. Iffy connections, no...
Just my 2 cents
:)
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Get a better crimper and you will never have another bad crimp.
LOL, thats a bunch of crap lol. My crimper was 23.99 and was highly recommended over all the others by an actual electrician , so i do not think a better crimper will solve my troubles. Sorry eightbit, nice try though :)
groovY~
Not entirely crap, buy yourself an automated crimping station, a reel of terminals, the proper die set for those terminals, and use the proper size wire for those terminals, and I'd guarantee you'll never have any more connection problems. ;)
For crimping with hand tools, the biggest thing will be practice. You've already seen that with cheap insulated terminals it's rather easy to crimp too hard and ruin the terminal. Knowing when to stop squeezing is something you'll learn with practice.
Here's a tip that'll help, strip more insulation off of the bare ends, fold the bare wire double, jam all the folded wires in the terminals, and crimp. The point is, terminals are sized to fit a range of wire sizes. The closer you are to the upper limit of that range, the better your chances of making a good connection.
If you can find them, uninsulated hi temperature terminals are a lot nicer to work with. They're made from plated steel, and you'd be hard pressed to overcrimp one.
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Crimping shouldn't be such a nightmare. Just use 22 guage wire and the nice .087 quick connects...
You think that's going to be big enough? ;)