Anyone any good at soldering? Quick earth/ground question...

**MiL0** · 10-06-2011, 11:12 AM

I want to solder 4-16 arcade buttons together. As they can all share a common ground/earth I figured I could daisy chain each button's ground connection in series (rather than give each button its own individual wire connection to ground).

What's the best way to solder the ground wires across each terminal? Is it better to cut lots of separate wires and then solder each one across to each terminal (so that each ground terminal requires two wires) or is there an easier way? (possibly using shrink wrap and one long uncut wire).

Hope that makes sense...

**safefire** · 10-06-2011, 06:14 PM

Hey man.

A long piece of "bare" wire will work.
As long as all the "hot" wires near it are isolated, then it shouldn't be a problem.

As a general rule of thumb (which is also nicely applied to circuit boards) is that fixed wires, wires that can't move around as the chassis does, are OK to be kept un-isolated.

The exception to this is, of course, wires carrying audio signals and other highly-sensitive signals.

How's the project going?
Happy soldering!

**MiL0** · 10-07-2011, 04:51 AM

Originally Posted by safefire

Hey man.

A long piece of "bare" wire will work.
As long as all the "hot" wires near it are isolated, then it shouldn't be a problem.

As a general rule of thumb (which is also nicely applied to circuit boards) is that fixed wires, wires that can't move around as the chassis does, are OK to be kept un-isolated.

The exception to this is, of course, wires carrying audio signals and other highly-sensitive signals.

How's the project going?
Happy soldering!

nice one - thanks

so how would I isolate the hot wire if it isn't 'protected'? Can I apply heat shrink wrap tubing on to it once it's soldered? Is that even possible? (all the shrink tube stuff I've seen needs to be put on the wire before its soldered...)

I might just cut lots of smaller wires for each connection and then twist each 2 wires together and solder it as if it were 1 wire... if that makes sense...

project is going well - gonna keep this one on the down-low for now... don't like posting about projects until they're nearly finished - it increases the chances of actually finishing it...

**neeloy** · 10-07-2011, 05:51 AM

electric tape or hot glue work well for isolating wires if you don't feel like using heat shrink.

**photojojo** · 10-07-2011, 06:09 AM

There's also liquid tape. The few times I've used that it's worked well.

**Liambo** · 10-07-2011, 06:12 AM

Originally Posted by neeloy

electric tape or hot glue work well for isolating wires if you don't feel like using heat shrink.

Originally Posted by photojojo

There's also liquid tape. The few times I've used that it's worked well.

From a well experienced background in electronics i highly recommend using heat shrink instead of any tape or glue etc etc. Yes they do the same job but can cause problems at a much, much later date.

**MiL0** · 10-07-2011, 07:42 AM

thanks everyone... can you get heat shrink that's not in a tube shape? so that you can put the heat shrink on the wire after you've done the soldering.

**sarasin** · 10-07-2011, 08:14 AM

Insolation tape?

Its the tube that makes it shrink...if you cut it....it won't stay on.

I recon just daisy chain it like they do in the Arcade Mod for the VCI instructions.