Driver Station Digital Input

[Lord_Jeremy]

Just now I was trying to wire a toggle switch to a digital input on the DS. I believe I wired it correctly, with the power terminal going to the middle pole and the signal and ground going to the two outer poles. However, when the DS was plugged in and the switch was plugged in, it immediately shut down. I quickly pulled the power cable out of the DS. So then I plugged in a bare set of three wires and discovered that whenever the power terminal was pulled to the Signal or Ground the DS would shut down. I'm pretty sure something is shorting. Just before doing this I did the grounding procedure with wiring the side bolt to some of the grounds on the DS. As far as I can tell the drivers station still functions, though I have no way of testing the digital inputs. There was no magic smoke. I'm pretty freaked out because two years ago I accidentally burned an OI by miswiring the disable button. Anyone have any idea what's going on? I'm wondering if I need to tie the power to ground or signal with a resistor of some type, though I'm loathe to do any further testing without advice from you guys. Thanks.

EDIT:
Well I may have made a grave mistake. I guess I'm just tired but it now occurs to me that I should have tied Signal to Ground not Power to Ground. I'm probably lucky that I didn't seriously damage the DS.

[Mike Betts]

Jeremy,

Lucky for you that this input is somewhat fault tolerant.

Use an ohmmeter to determine the pin arrangement on your switch. Connect one pole to +5, the other pole to ground and the common to the signal pin.

Mike

[DonRotolo]

Use a 10 k resistor to tie the signal to +5 volts, rather than directly to signal. In theory it shouldn't matter but the resistor is the common industry standard way, because it ensures that errors won't cause damage. You can even connect the +5 to signal through the 10 k resistor and just short the signal to ground with the switch...with impunity!

Don