i am ready to start soldering up my project for it's final installation. I need to mount my serial lcd display and toucscreen to a panel on the dash of my boat (10 wires for the glcd and 4 for the touchpanel). I'm wondering what type of cable and connectors i should use (guessing something shielded for the cable and a locking connector) and how long of a run is possible.
Ideally i'd like to have about 3ft of cable so i can mount my relay board and arduino in the same enclosure in a relatively accessible (yet protected from water) location. If that is not realistic, i could mount the arduino 12-18" from the glcd and then run 18 wires to the relay board (gnd/pwr and 16 relays) as well as the 14 to the display.
Hi,
I use old parallel cables soldered to PCB Headers, the allows me to quickly plug and unplug projects without having to think where each individual wire should go. This should work over the distances you have mentioned.
Search DigiKey.com for ribbon cables. You can pretty much get any conductor count you want but you might be a bit restricted on length.
They also make connectors that are designed to push through teh wire so there is no soldering. It is relatively inexpensive considering how simple it is to implement.
Here is an example of 10' of 20 Conductor for $9.00. [urlhttp://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/AE20B-10-ND/AE20B-10-ND/2391637[/url]
