Advice for 6mm tactile button label/cover

base2design

Hello all, as the title implies, I'm looking for advice how to put nice labelled switch tops on 6mm tactile buttons (like this http://www.adafruit.com/product/367).

I wound up purchasing a crapload of these things without first thinking of how I would make them look nice on the front panel of the gizmo I'm building.

Any suggestions or should I have purchased something else?

Thanks for the help!

JonnyMac

Those aren't designed for caps. Have a look at Figure B on this page: http://www.mouser.com/catalog/catalogusd/647/1938.pdf. When you pick a vendor you can look-up the caps for them.

base2design

I assumed as much. Thanks for the pointers.

Peter Jakacki

base2design wrote: »

Hello all, as the title implies, I'm looking for advice how to put nice labelled switch tops on 6mm tactile buttons (like this http://www.adafruit.com/product/367).

I wound up purchasing a crapload of these things without first thinking of how I would make them look nice on the front panel of the gizmo I'm building.

Any suggestions or should I have purchased something else?

Thanks for the help!

It is possible to butt them up through a hole level with the front panel and use a plain membrane or even print on heavy duty laser label polyester paper and stick this over the panel. Then it works similar to a membrane switch panel. Normally you would use buttons with longer stems to go through thicker front panels etc but you could also have a plastic disk stuck to the back of the label paper which then rests against the switch. The disk method means the finger press area can be larger without overly stressing the label paper (minimal travel).

base2design

Interesting. In a perfect world, I wish I could put keys that looked, felt, and lasted as long as those on my dad's HP-41 calculator.

garyg

base2design wrote: »

Interesting. In a perfect world, I wish I could put keys that looked, felt, and lasted as long as those on my dad's HP-41 calculator.

Hi
It appears that you are looking for something that I am going for also.
I will attempt to describe what I have yet to try.

Design a circuit board that has your Tact switches attached.
Draw your button layout same as your button layout on the circuit board.
Drill holes in a piece of scrap wood same as thickness of your buttons.
put a spacer under the scrap wood buttons of about 1/16" thick.
This will create a mold for making your buttons.
Smear 100% silicone caulk mixed with a small amount of glycerin - to aid in curing the silicone caulk. into the mold.
When the silicone caulk cures - approx. 8 hours.
remove the buttons and membrane from the mold.

I've created a few objects using the silicone caulk rubber technique with good results.
I'm planning on using this process to make weatherproof flexible buttons for a propeller controlled timer project that I am currently working on.

TimerPartsLayout_buttonsThoughts.pdf

I've attempted to attach a PDF file of my current layout drawing for the buttons.
I'm not sure if it will appear correctly or even be somewhat useful to describe what I just detailed above.

If you are interested about this, I can attempt to answer questions.

By the Way.
My calculator is an HP15C - I'm hoping it never dies.

I hope this may help you in some manner

Garyg

JRetSapDoog

I once used similar switches (though surface mount type and smaller) to make a keyboard for a project. I sandwiched a thin sheet of rubber between the PCB (over the keys w/o cutouts) and a laminated face piece, all held together with double-sided tape. The keys pressed a lot like membrane switches and produced a nice (but not too loud) feedback click. However, such a keyboard (qwerty in this case), did not allow for touch typing, of course.




Edit: Although I'm seeing the two images inline in IE (on my PC), they don't appear in Chrome, hence the added links. I wonder if it has anything to do with the hideous MS Paint program that I used to resize/crop them. Update: Well, I resized the already resized images using resizeyourimages.com, making them smaller. And now I'm also seeing them inline in Chrome.

WBA Consulting

How tall are the "buttons" protruding from the switch body? I have a front panel from a defunct commercial laminator sitting on my desk at work that uses similar tact switches with a basic adhesive overlay that gives a nice feel and look. I specifically salvaged the panel because of the way it used basic tact switches to accomplish a snap-dome type front panel effect. I will try to remember to grab a few pics tomorrow. It's one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Apache-AL18P-Professional-Laminator-Documents/dp/B0012UKI72

WBA Consulting

Here are some pics of the tact switch board that ends up working like a membrane keypad. The top label is made up of four layers.The top layer is clear, the 2nd layer is the white button material and the blue tinted material over the display, the 3rd is the solid blue base layer with the printing (F, READY, TEMP SET), and the bottom layer is a double sided acrylic adhesive.

garyg

Hi
I see that base2design has not checked in for a few days.
However;
Everyone who responded to the question posed by base2design has helped me to rethink my approach to tactswitch use.
Peter in post 4 said exactly what the photos that rigil posted.
Between Peter's words , RJetSapDoog and Rigil's photos I understand this approach.
It seems as though making a weatherproof display will be as easy as building the tact switch circuit board, laminating a display and positioning
the display over the tact switches.
Most interesting info in the photos are the size of the holes through the panels.
It appears that the holes need to be approx. 3 x the diameter of the pushbuttons on the tact switches.
I'm do not know what base2design will be doing with this info, but
my design strategy will definitely be using all the info from your postings.
Thanks
even though I'm not the original poster
gg

WBA Consulting

Glad the pictures were of use. I assume when you mention "Rigil" you meant me... When I read Peter's post, I immediately thought of the panel. I specifically kept that panel for this exact reason: a simple and cheap way to make membrane style keypads. I need to dig up my old notes now on thin materials that laser well for making the laminated style overlay stackup. I have a project in the works that could utilize a keypad like this as an option now that it won't cost a fortune.

idbruce

Over the years, I have disassembled numerous printers for salvagable parts, and I have always kept the user input assemblies for possible future use. As it pertains to my current 3D printer project, I recently took the time to closely examine the various assemblies and how working assemblies were achieved. As you can imagine, various methods were utilized for tactile switches, however the most common method was as follows:

1. Switches were mounted to a PCB.
2. The actual buttons (caps) each had both a protusion and a larger retaining perimeter at the rear. The protrusion needs to be long enough to linearly guide the button through the faceplate and possibly an additional guidance spacer, as well as enough protrusion through the faceplate to allow button presses, meanwhile with the button travel being on the same axis as the switch travel. The larger retaining area at the rear of the button (cap), prevents the button from becoming dislodged.

As for the labeling, I came to the conclusion that most of the button labels had been screen printed on the button faces, however I do believe that similar results can be achieved with vinyl graphics (decals). Some vinyl graphic films are very thin and I am fairly certain that very small lettering and symbols can be achieved with the right vendor.

To my knowledge, Gregory, Inc. is one of the best vinyl graphics suppliers in the business and I am fairly certain that they may be able to help you with your labling needs, after you achieve a working switch and cap assembly. Here is a link to their website: http://www.gregory1.com/

base2design

Nice comments everyone. Thanks! I'd been visiting the thread from a browser that didn't log me in. I have a fair amount of non-switch problems to solve but will post pictures when I eventually get this gizmo running.