Help needed with connecting buttons to Pro-Race

[melgueriri]

Hi all,

I have the Pro-Race dash, the button adapter, several push buttons and several rotary encoders with which I wanted to make my own button box. I also have the 20 pin dual female splittable jumper wire to make connections even simpeler.

I have two questions I want to check with you guys:
First to attach a button to the button adapter, I think I need to do the following: Take two splittable jumper wires. Solder one wire to a contact of the push button. Solder the other wire to the other contact of the push button. Connect the jumper wire to a specific button pin of the button adapter. Can I connect two jumpers to the two pins of one button on the button adapter or do I need to use a specific order? In other words: will it always work as long as I attach both jumpers to the corresponding button-pins on the board or do I need connect a specific jumper to a specific pin? Every button has two pins, so I don't think I can make big faults there I hope (maybe causing a shortage).

The second question is how do I attach the rotary encoders to the button adapter? I know a rotary encoder uses two buttons. I thought I need to solder two wires to both outside pins of the rotary encoder (so each wire to one outside pin). Let's call these wire A and wire C. The middle wire I need to solder two wires to. Let's call these wire B1 and wire B2. Then I can attach two wires to a specific button. So wire A and wire B1 would be connected to both pins of button 3 for example. And wire C and B2 would be connected to both pins of button 4. Is this how it should work or am I completely missing out on something here?

[melgueriri]

Can anyone help me with my question?

[Cristiano]

Hello.

To connect a button to the button adapter use 2 wires: each wire is connect to one pin on the button adapter and to one contact of the button.
of course you have to use the correct pins on the button adapter. there is no right order for the wires of button contacts, any will work.

Regarding the rotary encoder, you can use 3 wires instead of 4.

Use 2 wires to connect the outside contacts of the rotary encoders to the pins of buttons 1 and 2 (for example) on the button adapter.
but here there is an order to follow: keeping the button adapter oriented as in this picture, connect the 2 wires to the top pins of button 1 & 2.

now use a third wire to connect the central contact of the rotary encoder to the bottom pin of button 1 OR to the bottom pin of button 2 on the button adapter.

I hope this is not too confusing.
Please let me know if you have any question.

Regards
Cristiano

[melgueriri]

Cristiano,

Thank you very much for the clear explanation! With that and the schematics on the website and help from my friend I think I can get this working. It looks to be easier than I thought! Hopefully I can show the result soon!