pushbutton frustrations

doggiedoc

Hi all!

I just got some new loot today and in the loot was a handful of push buttons. You know the ones like the reset buttons on most of the boards. Anyway I had been robbing the ones that came with the BOE-Bots I have (4) and thought I'd get more. ( I like pushing pushbuttons <grin>)

So...... on to the frustration: I can't seem to convince the little buggers to sit still in a breadboard!!! I know it's getting late and I am definately cross-eyed with exhaustion, but I'm pretty sure the don't quite fit the breadboard like the one's that come in the Boe-Bot.

Anybody else having this problem or is it just me?



Doc

RDL2004

Some parts, like pots and those push button switches, have leads that are more like wide, flat pieces of metal. These type never fit well in plastic breadboards, they are too wide. You might try squeezing the leads down a bit with a pair of pliers or vise-grips to make them smaller.

Newzed

For pushbuttons, try a Tact Switch from Parallax.· For PB board pots, try Bourns.

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Sid Weaver
Do you have a Stamp Tester yet?
http://hometown.aol.com/newzed/index.html

·

Beau Schwabe

RDL2004,

Another "trick" is to, with a needle nose pair of pliers, is to twist (note: twist not bend) the pins 90 Deg.
This has worked for me with some voltage regulators and other components that are almost too large
for the solderless bread board holes in the preferred orientation.

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Beau Schwabe

IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.

LoopyByteloose

By the way, there are a couple of neat design tricks.

One is software.
You use one button to accept an item. If you wait a period of time, the computer assumes no and moves to the next item.

The other is hardware with related programing.
If anybody remembers 'Wordstar', they provided a star-like cross for cursor control before we had mice. If you use 5 buttons, the center can be an ENTER button. Additionally, you can use for 4-Bit Hitachi LCD, share the four data inputs for i/o and add one more for the ENTER. This way you have only 8 pins of your BS2 used with a nifty keyboard that can jump to the Hidden RAM as Pages or scroll left and right. You have the up/down for the 4 lines or you can use them to move to another menu item.

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G. Herzog in Taiwan

doggiedoc

I got a pretty good solution: I ordered some 30 pin snappable headers from allectronics.com and the buttons fit nice and tight in them and the headers fit snugly in the breadboard!

Now when I push a button it doesn't go "boing" and fly out across the table <grin>.


Thanks for the suggestions!

Doc


EDIT: I mean SIP sockets, not headers..... duh!

Post Edited (doggiedoc) : 10/4/2005 5:36:52 PM GMT

Electronegativity

Hey Doggiedoc, I had the same issue with components popping out of my breadboard and solved the problem with a random orbit sander.

If you take off the top 1/8 of an inch or so of plastic everything sticks like viscious rumors.

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I wonder if this wire is hot...

doggiedoc

Beau's suggestion of twisting each pin 90 degrees works best. They fit tighter than a tick on a hound dog now!!!



<grin>
Doc