Wiring up the control panel

I first marked, on the wiring side, all the buttons, to keep me from getting confused. I also marked U, D, L, & R on the micro switches of each joystick. You have to be careful here, because the joystick orientation is backwards from the front side of the control panel.
I then mounted the keywiz eco2 keyboard encoder. The keywiz is very small, which is good when the control panel is as crowded as this one.
I positioned the encoder so that the IDE cable will plug in to easily run left and right of the control panel.
I also had to leave room for the PS/2 cable to plug into the encoder.
I mounted the encoder to the wood using small screws. I used rubber grommets as spacers, to raise the encoder off the wood. This may not be necessary, but I didnt feel good about having the electronic circuit board resting on the primed wood.

I then ran ground wires to each switch (except the mouse clicks). I used #20 AWG stranded copper wire.
I used two ground circuits. One for each side of the board.
I could have used just one circuit for all the switches, but the keywiz has 3 ground connectors, so I thought it might keep the wiring a little neater to use two ground circuits.
Notice how the ground wire just "daisy chains" to each switch.
Also, on the bottom left side, you see a wire going off the board. This will pick up the coin credit switches.

I then connected the IDE cable to the encoder and separated the wires as I needed them.
I soldered the ground wires first. I marked each wire as I singled it out from the group.
I used the same markings that the encoder has stamped on it.
I used peel and stick marker tape (Available at electrical supply house.)

I connected the IDE cable wires to the COMMON connector on each switch.
I am an electrician, so I automatically think that the common wire (the black ground wire in this project), should connect to the terminal marked "Common" on the switch.
But on these switches, the common is on top, and since the switch doesnt care which way it is wired, I attached the ground wire to the Normally Open contact on the switch.
This left the Common contact easier to get to when I soldered the small IDE wire to it.

After I connected all the switches, I soldered the wires from the mouse board to the mouse click buttons.
Here is the finished result:
What a bird's nest! (I did straighten up the appearance a little later.)
I still need to solder two wires to the "power on" switch (green button).
These wires will go back to the computer to turn it on.

Some notes about the IDE cable:
Use the older type 40 wire cable. Even though an 80 wire cable will probably work, the wires for this type cable are very small, and will be harder to work with.
You will need a fairly long one. I happened to have a 2 foot one in my junk box, which worked out pretty good.
If the one you have is not long enough to reach all the switches, you can splice wires to them to make them long enough. But having the wires to reach all the switches without splicing, cuts down on the work. I will need to splice two wires for the coin switches, but I can live with that.

If you look close at the bottom picture, you will notice a white wire in the bunch.
Also two diodes on the top left button switches.
I used this for the game save/load circuit.
More on that later.

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