Q: Hi! Sorry to bother you, but I recently ordered a new Sanwa joystick, buttons, octagonal gate, and spring to use to upgrade an 8bitdo FC-30 arcade joystick. The buttons were easy, but I'm uncertain how to connect the stick, and I'm not finding the right type of how-to on Google or YouTube to explain how to put together a connection with these ports. The Sanwa stick came with a bundle of loose wires on one end, and a plastic connector on the joystick end. The PCB in the 8bitdo stick uses 4 plastic connectors for up, down, left, and right...and the ends of those wires are just soldered to connection points on the original stick. Any ideas how to go about this? I've included a couple of pictures to try to show what I'm working with.
Any help at all is appreciated! Thank you!
A: A Philmore barrier strip would be the best solution. After talking to SRK tech, President Camacho, we agree splicing the wires of the original joystick wires to their direct inputs and then merge all the ground wires would be the best and solderless option. If you look at each of those connectors on the pcb you'll see one is for your direction and the other is ground on each of those two-pronged slots. Connect the original wires at the pcb end then splice the wires in the barrier strip taking one wire from each of those connectors and putting them in one "ground slot" the other wires in each connector would then go one on one for the new harness. The barrier strip can be found at your local electronics store or us https://www.focusattack.com/philmore-12-terminal-euro-style-18-20-awg-barrier-strip/ you only need the first 5 of each side of the philmore strip and you would be all set. If you need more details on how to do this process, please let me know.
Q: I think I understand what you're saying. I just have one question: how do I tell which of the stock white wires are ground? They don't seem to be marked.
A: Try all the ones on one side and do all the others as direct inputs. If it doesn't register. Try the opposite. If you have a multi-meter, you can test continuity on the back of the pcb https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-use-a-multimeter/continuity
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