Splitting cables

[The boy 4rm oz]

Hi I just made a controll box to go with the industrial mod for my case and i have a few questions. The box was made to house the cathode switches and a couple of other things but every time I want to take off my side pannel i have to take off both my cathodes. Is their any simple way of splitting the wires on the switch so I dont need to take off my cathodes when i open up the case? I was thinking of sumthing like molex connectors so i can pull the wires appart when i need to or sumthing like an AV plug. Any ideas would be great. Thanks.

[jdbnsn]

Sure, any type of in line connectors should work. Vantaal used some radio shack audio cables to do something similar. Molex would work, audio cables would work (assuming there are two wires), even if there are 3 wires you could use any type of plug used to join wires. Check out male and female connectors for things like headphones, RCA plugs, DIN plugs, or even those spring loaded speaker wire clamp style inserts that are found on many factory speakers
http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/setup/interconnects/images/image006_000.jpg

http://images.misupply.com/products/original/Mainline/133925.jpg

http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/images/G13930B.jpg

[tybrenis]

Couldn't have said it better myself jdbnsn!

[The boy 4rm oz]

Thanks for that. What are the middle plugs called, the blue and black ones?

[DaveW]

I havn't seen the middle ones before either...look like car socket plugs...

-Dave

[qoou]

i think the middle ones look like optical cables, but thats just a wild guess.

[Aero]

haha, optical cables is a computer...that would be interesting.

[xmastree]

So, something is mounted on the side panel, and has to be disconencted when you take the panel off? Is that right?

Why not try to arrange some contacts which line up and simply connect when the panel is fitted? I'm thinking along the lines of taking apart an old multi-pole relay and using the contacts from it.

It would need some trickery with solder and probably epoxy, but the end result would be simple, neat and effective.

[jdbnsn]

That's a cool idea!

[xmastree]

These would work well:
http://www.tciinfo.com/IMAGES/iasort.jpg
They're normally used for pcb test rigs. The board is pulled down, usually by vacuum, and a bunch of these connect to it from below. They're spring loaded.

For the other side, you would need something like an old AT expansion card, and cut off the edge connector. (gold plated, and as it's AT the connections are spaced wider giving more leeway with the mountings)

Mount the pins in something like a connector block. Assuming the panel slides forward to lock in place, these would need to be on the front edge. I would mount the pins on the side panel, but it could work either way.

Or... If you have, or can get, a real old AT motherboard, use one of the AT slots from that and the edge of a compatible card. That would take a little more force to engage, so mount it well.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Those ideas sound really good but I think I'll just keep to the simpler idea I had.