I'm hoping to hook ond up with some Seimitsu versions of his Happ halo button mod. I said I would post some pictures/info so here goes.
I am going to use these on one of my cabs but ond is definitely going to get there before me so I thought I had better get cracking
The happ buttons are fairly easy to mod once you have the translucent disc in as you can just bang a LED in the middle of the button and it will light the disc evenly.
The Jap buttons however are a different kettle of fish as there is no space to fit a LED like you can in the Happ buttons. You can put LEDs in the side of the buttons but you just end up with an nasty spotting effect IMO.
My first thought was to insert a translucent disc into the button and also mount some LEDs inside the button at an angle so that they light the button without the spotting effect.
I did made some nylon LED holders (the black part in that drawing) to hold the LEDs but there was just not going to be enough room to hold and wire the buttons, especially as I want to use RGB LEDs.
I abandoned the idea for a while and decided to try another effect. My next plan when working on my Neo Geo Naomi was to use the translucent Seimitsu PS-14-KN's:
I made some black nylon tubes with a matching button thread (M30x1.5mm or something IIRC, I know it wasn't a standard pitch) to house some Piranha/Superflux LEDs:
The wide angle LEDs were mounted in the bottom and shone though the translucent button to light it up:
While this looked ok there was a couple of problems. Firstly the buttons ended up not being fully lit because of the large microswitch in the PS-14-KNs. They also did not have the more subtle Halo effect that I wanted as they were translucent buttons rather than opaque and there was no disc inside them that could be lit to give the halo affect.
So after a little more thinking on and off I decided to create a button with a opaque shell, a clear bottom, a smaller microswitch to allow more light through and a translucent disc inserted into the top of the button that could be lit.
To do this I needed to use two buttons to make one.
At the top is the older style PS-14K snap in buttons and the bottom is the PS-14-GN which is the opaque version of the PS-14-KNs I had used previously.
The major differences between them (apart from the fact that one is a screw in and one is a snap in) is the size of the microswitch and the mating inner plunger.
I needed to mount the smaller PS-14D microswitch in a transparent disc, remove the bottom of the PS-14-GN and stick the disc to the bottom.
I just held the button in a lathe and skimmed off the bottom:
My phone died on me at this point so I couldn't get anymore pictures at the time, just imagine it is now without a bottom.
I then made a turned, drilled and slotted a template and then used that to template route some 2mm acrylic to create a new bottom.
The template is on the left. The disc on the middle is how the router cuts it. The 1/4" bit leaves a 1/8" radius in the bottom which then needs to be filed out so the micro will fit.
Finished bottom with micro in:
I turned a smaller template and used that to route an insert for the button from translucent 3mm acrylic.
As this was going to sit in the top of the button I needed to remove 3mm from the top of the inner plunger. To do this I made a split bush out of nylon and then held that in a chuck and skimmed 3mm off in a lathe.
The finished X-Wing (
) plunger and a stock one next to it.
Pic of the plunger and insert in the plunger cap:
I then glued the bottom section onto the button. You can see how much light can get through:
This time I decided to use four 5mm LEDs as the Superflux LEDs I used before were not bright enough and the standard 5mm RGBs will be much easier to wire.
I made another drill jig to drill the buttons. The center hole is for the micro wires.
I then wired up some LEDs. I just used some blue ones I have as I don't have any RGBs left.
I also punched out a piece of red vinyl using a hardened steel punch I made and inserted it into the plunger cap.
And the final lit pictures:
I couldn't be happier with the results, its exactly what I was after. It will be a lot of work to do the 12 buttons for my (eventual!) project but I think its worth it and its damned good fun too