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Customize Sparkfun Silicone Buttons into Strip


MONSTA

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Hello all,

I am new here and have been researching making my own midi controlers for the past few months. Originally I was going to go the way of an arduino, but think your community seems the best place to start for midi specific noodlings.

I love the monome buttons and have seen the Sparkfun alternatives, which seem perfect for my use for the most part, but in places I will need just a strip of 4, rather than a grid. Would it be possible to get my own PCB made for them (are they double sided and does this cause a problem) and cut up the silicone buttons to make a row of 4?

Has anyone done this, or have experience with them and be able to guide me in the right direction/set me straight on it's impossibility.

Thanks for any advice

Christian

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Welcome aboard niietzshe :)

Having custom PCBs made is definitely possible, although for something so small and simple, I would probably use protoboard for the job. But it's definitely possible, and very easy to use from the software side.

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It's a bit hard to use protoboard - we're talking about silicon rubber buttons with conductive rubber pads, which need to mate with exposed traces on the PCB. Protoboard is typically bare copper donuts which are bad for contacts like this... even tinning them with solder would lead to intermittent conductivity and a crappy switch :-)

Sparkfun sell a "mini button pad set":

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8998

08998-08-L.jpg

which mate with a different type of PCB:

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8963

08963-03-L.jpg

and this PCB is easy to split into single buttons to reposition them as you like.

If you really prefer a row of four big square buttons like the other kind, then it's probably easiest to cut one of SparkFun's 2x2 boards in half, than go to the trouble of making a new PCB, and paying so much more in production costs to get them made. I mean, they're already designed to split a 4x4 board into four 2x2 boards, so cutting one of these in half and adding wire between cut tracks (or just connecting wires to the switches' pads) is probably not too much work.

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Thanks for all the advice!

I was wondering if I could cut up the PCB, but then thought it might be easier to get an entire board made up and just cut the buttons up. I've found a guy on here who offeres his button making services with a lazer cutter. This might be the way to go for me if I can just possition the buttons how I like.

While on the subject of DIY buttons, do you guys/girls have any suggestions on making them sturdy. IE, if I just build it up on breadboard or similar, what would be the best way of making sure I had sturdy buttons that could take a bit of a bashing? I'm not going to be hitting them a lot, I'm a club DJ, not a controllerist etc, but I do have a habbit of giving them a good push when I want to drop something in.

Thanks again for all your help, this place seems really friendly and enthusiastic!

Christian

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I was thinking more of the breadboard etc that you would mount the buttons onto. I can't believe it's so hard to get monome style buttons in configurations thats actually helpful for anything other than a matrix. If someone had the skills/tools to make buttons on here, you'd think they'd make a killing!

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While on the subject of DIY buttons, do you guys/girls have any suggestions on making them sturdy. IE, if I just build it up on breadboard or similar, what would be the best way of making sure I had sturdy buttons that could take a bit of a bashing?

t's all about the mounting. The fibreglass boards are actually quite strong, provided that you give them enough support. Just use lots of bolt+standoffs on the breadboard, and you'll be able to whack them all day long without concern.

Mind you, they aren't velocity sensitive, and hitting buttons heavily is bad for your fingers... probably worth breaking the bad habit of pushing them so hard. (I have that problem with my keyboard, as do most people)

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