Would hot gloe work?
Also what about using D-sub connectors.
I wouldnât do that but I donât see why you canâtâŚ
I was browsing radio shack to see if there was anything usefull. Just trying to think outside the box. Thanks.
I was wondering how you guys arrange your wires into ribbons stuck on the PCB. Is it just careful measuring + glue?
I watched Kuya_Joe do my super wiring and it is just like he said. Superglue, planning,patience, and beer. He had 4 beers as he did my mod and it looked amazing. Iâm sure practice was also key since he does that style of wiring a lot.
I took some pictures when dualmodding a PS3 TE-S a while ago that shows some wire management tricks and conventions I like to use. Some of this stuff was mentioned earlier but since I like talking about myself Iâm just gonna mention everything.
See all those holes? Those outlines? I planned out the paths of where my wires would go and where Iâd put my PCBsâŚ
Resulting in this. PCBs are cinched down to the inner plastic with zip ties. Wires are bundled with zipties based on where theyâre going then cinched down to the inner plastic with zip ties along their path. I LOVE ZIPTIES if you donât get the idea, and you should love them too. I get like 100 for $1 at the dollar store and yeah, the dollar stores arenât amazing but work fine for stick stuff, and I always make sure I have a good amount of them before starting a project. It helps to keep different sizes on-hand, I should but I donât. You canât use them in every mounting scenario, but when it works itâs effective and cheaper than PCB mounts. Oh and this wonât always work, but sometimes if you canât drill through, you can glue small loops of ziptie to the case, and use that as ghetto ziptie mounts, by attaching the board to those glued loops with other zipties.
I kept in mind the path the wires would take when I soldered, since I donât like when you solder a wire going one way and the actual path it takes is the opposite direction. I also had measured out the paths the wires would take, just put (tape or let it sit) your board in the stick where youâll put it (or approximate where it will go) and fish some wire around, getting a feel for where it will go, give yourself a bit of slack, and cut it, then use that wire as a measuring wire to cut identical length wires for the other wires headed that direction. You can vary the length if certain wires in the bundle donât meet the PCB in the same area (like shoulder buttons) to make them about the same length on the other side, it helps to pre-label those and set them aside. Also if youâll notice, I used the PCBâs existing USB cord to go to the Impv2, it saved me the trouble of soldering 4 new wires and kept them in a neat bundle. One more thing, see all that glue? You wonât always need/want to, but if you want to have more of a guarantee of your work holding up, you should glue the wires down so they canât be yanked off the board. What if someone opens the stick without care and tugs really hard on a wire? If that glueâs not there, itâs probably going to tear the trace from the board.
The blue tape is a painters tape that I use as labels, just write something with a Sharpie half the width across (if you can), tear it about 1cm high, and fold it in half around the wire. That blue strip of tape above the hole is a label showing what each point carries. (BTW If the hole under the button distribution board looks different than the previous pic itâs because I had dremeled out the wrong area underneath it.)
There are some things here I could for sure do better. I used 22awg stranded wire, which is manageable, but the gauge is overkill. This was just what I could get from a quick trip to Radio Shack. I could get wire at Fryâs but I think it kinda sucks (Joe disagrees), and the mom and pop electronics store I like is a town over and I can only shop there before 3PM on Saturdays due to its hours. Also, I used only one color of wire, which isnât exactly âbadâ, but some distinction can help sometimes. At the least it would have helped with that bundle of wires going through to the top-inside on the right. I basically had to leave the wires on the other side, figure out which one I needed, and fish it into the hole, wire by wire. If I had done something like made incoming USB wires red, outgoing USB wires green, and up/down/left/right/home/turbo black, it could have saved me some hassle.
One more quick example from a hitbox dual mod in progress:
You can see two distinct bundles of wires, these are for each side of the Cthulhu+. Theyâre about the same length and labelled, once I finish up the Hitbox tonight itâll just take a few minutes to wire them in. Just a bit of planning makes your work a lot neater. And also theyâre glued for strain relief on the PCB side. And some ziptie awesomeness with the SOCD PCB over to the left. I did use some finer gauge wire for that part actually. If you donât have much but you still have some finer wire, use it for where wiring is really tight, and use the thicker wire for where it wonât matter.
Some other things I do:
Something I do sometimes is, and this only really works with wires that arenât too dark, is to use my sharpie to make marks to distinguish wires. So for the above situation, I could have done something like this to distinguish the USB wires: non-marked = VCC, colored tips = GND, fine dashes = D-, fat dashes = D+. I did label those wires but the labels werenât poking through the other side.
I have my multimeter set on continuity mode and make sure I havenât bridged any close-together traces as I go along. âAn ounce of preventionâ and all that.
I keep a small notepad nearby and use it for notes. If I draw something really useful (for example I have a matrix showing basically everything you would ever want to know about Brawl Pads) I make sure not to toss it by the end of the mod.
I guess if I think of more stuff Iâll update this post. Basically if you want the TLDR, stay organized, and plan things out before you start hooking things up.
Thanks for sharing.
LOL I knew it, I was looking at a pic that had the background of your work area and noticed the Super Glue bottle, i told my partner, I bet they super glue the wire strands which is super clean cuz I canât ever see the glue in the pictures!!! Seriously Pioneering wiring man. I wanted to start a Kickstarter for custom boxes, but I think it would have to combine a ton of talented people working together to start a company.
Iâm in.
More tooting my own horn, here are some things I did for one of my own sticks that Iâm in the process of modding, maybe it will give you guys some ideas. Not all of this is pure wire management, but it seems like itâd fit in this thread.
The RJ45 cord was leaning a bit too much to the right for my liking, so I used a ziptie as strain relief to make it go straight down from the Neutrik jack, and then bend. Much better peace of mind for me than to have it permanently tugging the Neutrik to one side, even if just a bit.
Test-fitting a part. I put it in place using tape and closed the case up, then took it back apart. The jack was undisturbed, so that spot should be good since nothing was touching it.
Left some notes to myself, for next time I need to unscrew the two inner TE halves. Since there were only 3 NO-holes versus like 15 holes to be used, it was easier for me to label where I donât need screws than to label where I did.
More notes to self. I made note of the orientation of the TE panel (the âBOTââ on the top of the tape) so Iâd be sure Iâm hooking it up right-way-around (raise your hand if youâve ever hooked up a stick, assembled it, and the kicks and punches are switched around), although the textâs orientation itself was probably enough to tell me which way is the right way.
Yet more notes to self. <-White Grey->, flash makes it hard to tell theyâre not both white.
This thread is amazing - personally, Iâve got all the technical soldering, wiring stuff functionally down, but a few times, Iâve wired everything up correctly, only to have trouble closing up due the the rats nest of wires Iâve created.
If you guys have any more tips about case management to share, Iâm sure Iâm not the only amateur modder who would benefit. Iâm especially curious about how yâall manage to fit your mods in less forgiving cases, like the SE, HRAP3, or the TE Pro.
? The SE adn HRAP3 are pretty forgiving last time I checked. The TE Pro is trickier, but its easier to place a madcatz pad in it than the OG TE.
For Instance, Recent Ps3>360 Pro I did. Its clean, just not gdlk
Gong to be crimping for the first time this week. Thought Iâd ask the pros a quick question. Will this crimper/stripper tool work if Iâm trying to crimp open barrel QDs from focus attack onto 22awg wire? http://www.frys.com/product/3256901?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
No.
Thanks jdm
How about these?
http://www.amazon.com/Irwin-Industrial-2078309-Stripper-ProTouch/dp/B000JNNWQ2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1345892461&sr=8-2&keywords=wire crimper
http://www.amazon.com/Irwin-Industrial-2078317-Stripper-ProTouch/dp/B000JNLUN4/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1345892487&sr=8-6&keywords=wire crimper
http://www.amazon.com/Paladin-Crimper-Electrical-Terminal-Multi-Purpose/dp/B007FQDHK2/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1345893075&sr=1-1&keywords=open+barrel+crimper
Third one.
Any suggestions for easy removal of screw-down terminals?
Amazing work by jdm714 and Kuya_Joe among others. Iâm getting much better at organizing my wiring thanks to inspiration here on TT.
Started using sleeving and making designs in my wiring. Thanks for the inspiration gentlemen.
I had the same issue and when I asked Toodles about it he said:
âFlux definitely helps if the solder doesnât seem to melt enough. Use pump to get the bulk of the solder off, and braid for the last remnants.â
On a related note if I where to do the above (i.e. remove screw-down terminals) on a PCB that already has open holes (?) for those who wanted to solder would I essentially have 2x the number of points to solder ground wires to or is there some reason why I shouldnât do that?