Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: DigDreams on June 03, 2006, 09:15:14 pm
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I just bought I bunch of buttons and high output LED's and was wonderig what is the best way to wire it up? I seems kind of bulky to just solder or twist together all of the positives and grounds from a molex. Is there something I can use that is cleaner?
I was thinking something with screw terminals like on the i-Pac, with one side being ground and one being +12v. Is something like this available? 23 leads all twisted together seems like a mess to me. (I have 23 buttons total).
And help would be appreciated - this is my first cab.
- DigDreams
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Don't know if this is exactly what you are getting at, but I'm using two barrier strips (part # 274-670) with some jumper strips (part 274-650) from Radio Scrap. They are a couple of bucks a piece and allow me to run the + to one of the sets of terminals (leaving 7 more screw downs) and the - to the second set of terminals (again 7 additional screw downs). I'm pretty sure this is overkill, but I thought it might make troubleshooting easier.
Basically, the barrier strip I picked up is a block of 16 screw down terminals in rows of 2 (each connected) that are seperated by plastic barriers - forming 8 usable rows. The jumper strip jumps accross each row, connecting them. This allows you to share a connection with seperate screw downs.
Does the explanation make any sense?
Try this lousy diagram of a barrier strip.
____________________________
| X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X |
____________________________
Or go to this site to see one:
http://www.oz.net/~coilgun/mark3/barrierstrips.htm (http://www.oz.net/~coilgun/mark3/barrierstrips.htm)
Good luck!
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That's almost what I need - just I need it "sideways". In other words, the barrier strip connects sets of 2. I want the shared connection going length ways. Let me explain it this way...
|A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H
|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8
A barrier strip would connect a to 1, b to 2, c to 3, and so on down the line. What I want would connect all the letters together and all of the numbers together. The goal is to have a long row of + and a long row of ground. This way I can run individual +/- paired wires to my LEDs.
I know this thing exists, I just don't know what it's called.
- DigDreams
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That's what I was getting at with the jumper strip. If you put a jumper strip on a single barrier strip it would connect all of them giving you a strip of positive connections. Add a second barrier strip/jumper combo and you have a strip for negative connections.
Good luck!
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Got it! Thanks!
- DigDreams