Solenoid Help Required

[KingofMetal79]

Morning Guys,
 I am presently deep into my cab build (thanks for the advice regarding the decasing of a plasma - all the horrible plastic has now been removed and it sits nicely in the body!) and my thoughts have turned to using solenoids for feedback on my flippers. I noticed some people have mentioned using them for feedback on flippers and I thought I would give it a go and therefore I have managed to pick up a couple of cheap 12v solenoids of eBay. However, how do I go about wiring them directly to the flipper button/switch? I have a separate 12 power supply in the cab for the illuminated buttons and fans e.t.c. and it  supplies the necessary power to the solenoid but I have no idea how to wire it so that the  solenoid fires when a flipper is pressed? I have heard several people mention that optocouplers are required to achieve the desired effect but I am completely in the dark regarding such things as my electronics knowledge is 'basic' at best! ) Therefore if anyone could detail how I can wire the solenoids to the flippers I would be very grateful.

 

Cheers.

[Njaynl]

Why not go the full ledwiz and zeb boaster board route? 

 

this way you have a full experience with your cab

 

this also includes the flippers

[zebulon]

You can wire the flippers using optocouplers to switch the encoder (ipac) signals and use the flipper switches to switch the contactors.

 

[KingofMetal79]

Cool. Thanks very much for your diagram and responses. However, i don't run my buttons using an ipac - I have a usb encoder where each button has a live and a ground wire that connects to the PCB (see pic below). Therefore can you kindly explain how I would go about wiring the flipper optocoupler to it? Sorry but my electronics isn't the best!

[Spektre]

Generally all commons for switch inputs are daisy chained together to save wiring clutter.

 

You want your switch isolated from your solenoid.  Zeb's circuit does that.