Translucent Microswitch Buttons*Taking Pre-Orders*

[shawnzilla]

Ahem...cough cough.... 

[shawnzilla]

BTW,

Most of you have received your invoices by now. If you haven't received it yet, it means one of two things:

1) You live outside of the US. I am working on all of these invoices together for the sake of time. I will be sending out these invoices this week.

2) I'm backordered on either your LEDs (particularly blue LEDS) or Microswitches (I should have both of these back in stock this week and you will receive your invoice).

[Chris]

How long on those yellow buttons?

[Kremmit]

Nice.  Color looks about right to me. 

Maybe you can get more clears when you order the yellows, yes?

[shawnzilla]

Nice.

[Heffaklumpen]

I've paid my 30 buttons now, can't wait until they arrive here in Sweden!
Two of my cabinets are getting brand new buttons 

[MrTroy]

My payment was sent. Hopefully my buttons were already sent. Now all we do is wait

*posts by the mail box* ^_^

[markrvp]

I got mine today.  Will wire up tonight.  Pictures tomorrow (hopefully).

[Troz]

I got mine today too and quickly put them in one of my panels to see how they look.  Couldn't be happier!  I'm even preferring the color of them over my original happ buttons even without a led installed.  Now I wish my red trackball unlit would match the red of the buttons.

Before Installation (solid color buttons)
Translucents Installed (not lit)
Red Closeup lit
Blue Closeup lit (a little blurry)

I couldn't get a good shot of green with my shakey hand and don't have a tripod around here.  These were lit from below the entire button with a led flashlight.

[MrSaLTy]

Nice, Thanks for posting some pics Troz.

Damn I gotta get me some of these.

[Troz]

Took a few more photos...

Orange installed in panel

Lit buttons, lights out:
Orange - Red - Blue - Green

The green is harder to light as you can see in the photos.  It'll probably need a more powerful led than the rest of them.

[Chris]

Are you using white LED's, or LEDs that match the color of the buttons?

[oic989]

Got my buttons today.  Was a tad suprised there's not some pre-molded mounting hole for the LEDs, since they're intended to be lit up after all.

Am I to assume that the preferred method for lighting them up is to drill through the center of the flat part on the bottom between the cherry mounting pegs and point it straight up? Or are you guys just pointing the LED at the side of the button, since it's translucent and all.

I know I've seen directions around for mouting LEDs in microswitch buttons, but I don't have the link handy.

[Troz]

Are you using white LED's, or LEDs that match the color of the buttons?

I'm just using a white LED flashlight aimed from below the button.  I haven't drilled into any of the buttons to install the LEDs I'll be using yet.

[Quarters]

Sigh... Still waiting on invoices.
It's my own fault for living in Canada and asking for microswitches.

How long between the time you get the microswitches get there and the time you get the next order of clear buttons? I would include some yellow in the order as well if the time line is similar.

[thetered]

Got my buttons today.

[shawnzilla]

The method that works best for me is to remove the plunger & spring, put the led inside the bezel (with one lead going out of each hole in the bottom, and then replace the spring & plunger.

Knievel also has posted a method for drilling a hole in the bottom and mounting it that way.

Personally, I didn't have much luck lighthing it from the sides as the plastic seems to be too thick.

To answer why these don't have an led holder built-in....I did not come up with the physical design of these. The manufacturer modified the colors of an existing product to my specifications, because they already had the mold. To have them make a custom mold for me would have cost thouands of dollars.

Quarters, your invoice is coming pretty quick as I am about to receive my new batch of microswitches today or tomorrow.

[oic989]

Thanks for the input on the LED mounting.

One other silly question. What kind of voltage should we be throwing at these? 5v? 12v? Something else? Doesn't matter because of the resistor?

Thanks!

[NY_in_TX]

I GOT MINE!!!! 

Shawnzilla, you rule!!! 

[shawnzilla]

Thanks for the input on the LED mounting.

One other silly question. What kind of voltage should we be throwing at these? 5v? 12v? Something else? Doesn't matter because of the resistor?

Thanks!

The resistors that I use are for 12V operation. I think you'll need to get a different resistor for 5V operation.

[Scoobie]

Okay, this is going to sound dumb to some of you.  But once the LED is in the button, how exactly do I wire it to power?  I'd like to wire them to my 5v connection on my ipac, but could tap into my PC power supply if needed.

Also, do I need to use a resistor?  If so, then does someone have a picture of how this is done?  I've never connected an LED or resistor.  The pics from Knievel and others show how to get the LED in the button, but not how to connect it to a power source.

Thanks for any help on this!

[markrvp]

I just did this last night based on Shawn's suggestions, so I can tell you how I did it.

First - I tapped into the computers power supply for 12 volts.  I ran the hot wire to one terminal block and the ground wire to another terminal block.

2nd - each LED gets two wires soldered to it.  The ground wire is then run to the grounding block.  The hot wire is soldered to the resistor which is then connected to the HOT BLOCK.

There is a lot of soldering to this (the way I did it).  I think Kelsey at OSCAR CONTROLS had the right idea by using the little plastic connectors (like your CD-ROM audio cable) to connect to the leads on the LED and then the wires out of the connector go to your power source.

I'll have pics tomorrow.  I'm just too tired tonight.

[JustMichael]

My clear ones have arrived.  Now for some testing...

[thetered]

Just searching google will yield more information on led lighting than you could ever possibly need, including all kinds of calculators and even apps that will design arrays for you.  Here is just a quick one I found

http://linear1.org/ckts/led.php

If you parallel your leds it's generally best to put a resistor on each one and not just one on the circuit, this is especially true is trying to run different colors in parallel as electricity will only flow to the one that requires the least voltage... and then fry it! 

I was fumbling in the dark with a nine volt a resistor and a led last night in the dark and accidenty connected the led to the resistor wire touching the terminal and fried it. It was kind of cool cause it was a blue led and first it kind of popped and started giving on yellow light before kind of melting down the terminal some and smelling bad.

[Scoobie]

I just did this last night based on Shawn's suggestions, so I can tell you how I did it.

First - I tapped into the computers power supply for 12 volts.  I ran the hot wire to one terminal block and the ground wire to another terminal block.

2nd - each LED gets two wires soldered to it.  The ground wire is then run to the grounding block.  The hot wire is soldered to the resistor which is then connected to the HOT BLOCK.

There is a lot of soldering to this (the way I did it).  I think Kelsey at OSCAR CONTROLS had the right idea by using the little plastic connectors (like your CD-ROM audio cable) to connect to the leads on the LED and then the wires out of the connector go to your power source.

I'll have pics tomorrow.  I'm just too tired tonight.

Pics would be great, thanks!

[thetered]

I've been wiring a ton up, and was going through the sides, also I am only doing one led as I didnt feel like it was worth the trouble for

[thetered]

heres a really quick dirty poor picture

[Chris]

I know we've talked about doing things to the buttons to frost them and spread the light, but what about frosting the LED's, or scuffing them with sanpaper, to scatter the light? 

[markrvp]

I know we've talked about doing things to the buttons to frost them and spread the light, but what about frosting the LED's, or scuffing them with sanpaper, to scatter the light?

[Chris]

Some type of diffusion on either the plastic or LED would make them look nicer.

[thetered]

True, they are bright if you look straight down, but I dont make it a habit to look straight down on them often when I play.



They do make leds that are designed to scatter and diffuse light better, I dont know where I seen them or what they referred to them as, but I know they exist.

In my panel, I am using 3/4in plywood, so by the time I go through that length on top of the nut I am was only able to put the leds right near the bottom of the threads, so depending on your setup if you have less thickness and put them closer up they might show better.

Overall though, they may not show up that great in bright light, but where I play it is usually dimly lit anyways and they are gonna show up great.

[Chris]

Y'know, now that I think about it, I have a couple of standard brightness LEDs lying around.... I should just try it and see.

[Kremmit]

I think sanding the dome top of the LED down flat would de-focus the beam, and frost the LED's smooth surface to boot.  Just be careful not to sand all the way down to the diode.

What about a dimmer switch connected to the whole button lighting circuit?

What about a little circle of EM tape inside the plunger?

What about a little circle of EM tape under the bezel?

[Franco]

Whoop, whoop! Got my clears today!

[LPZ]

I'm going into work tonight and I will sandblast a button to get a "frosted" look.  I agree if you look straight down into the button, it is very bright.  I will post pics tomorrow in the AM EST.

[RayB]

A quick spray on the inside with some of that "window frosting" paint might do the trick...

[CJK]

A quick spray on the inside with some of that "window frosting" paint might do the trick...

That's what I was thinking. My buttons should be here tomorrow (unless my local post office performs as usual, in which case it will be Wednesday), and I might try exactly that.

-- Chris

[tetsujin]

I know someone floated the idea of acetone... what about swabbing acetone inside the plunger with a Q-Tip?

Yep, planning to try this as soon as I can get my hands on a clear button.  (grrr....)

[MrTroy]

Well got my buttons some time between Friday and Today. I'm quite happy with them. a few of them feel slightly thicker than the other ones, and I'm having issues tightening the nuts. But we'll have to see when I get home and put them in my control panel.

[RandyT]

I know someone floated the idea of acetone... what about swabbing acetone inside the plunger with a Q-Tip?

Yep, planning to try this as soon as I can get my hands on a clear button.  (grrr....)

Tried this a week or so ago.  Initially it looked great, but then "healed" itself back to clear.  Tends to just make the material gummy.

I think this may end up being the issue to solve with these buttons.  If you mount the LEDs in the "normal" way, they tend to act like lenses and more light hits the ceiling than illuminates the button.

At least that has been my experience.

RandyT