DIY - highly durable illuminated buttons

[Sasha]

If you live in Serbia like me (hope not) :) you always have to improvise if you want to make something work, and especially if you want that looks good.

This is what you can do with old computer keyboard. If you open it you will find very durable separate butons which you have to unsolder of the board. Check out this post: http://69.56.171.55/~midibox/forum/index.php?topic=2769.0

You can use originl caps (big & ugly) or you can easely make this cool illuminated plexiglass ones. All you have to do is to draw shape you like in some vector or CAD program and let laser service cut it for you from a panel. I cut mine by hands for prototipe. :) Try to find transparent gray or brown plaxi, looks best. Coloured plexi is not good since it`s not transparent enough for LED illumination. After you have your buttons caps cuted, sand it with fine (water) sandpaper which makes it better for light difusion, and also nice and round. Veeeery touchy  :P :P :P

When you finish sanding drill 3-4mm hole on the bottom for 3mm LED, and glue everything on a top of the keyboard button.

If you want to make button just right, make second pass with roundered drill or some other tool to move away central dot which leves drill to make it perfect, and also for better light difusion. Don`t forget to make small cuts for LED legs before gluing. Enjoy!

I still didn`t make my midibox sing, but untill than... I`m not lazy! Here`s some pics of prototype button glued on a wood board. I think it looks much cooler than buttons on my Korg microkontrol in a background. :) ;)

[raphael]

Looks nice!

But I hope you have not too much buttons on your box... seems like a lot of work. :P

[Sasha]

No man, that`s the point. It is easy and fast to built. All you have to do is to draw litle bars in Corel, Illustrator or else, and take it to CNC laser cutters. After that, I`ve done drilling in hands with normal handheld drilling machine. Acuracy of hole is not, a problem. You just need some hole to put LED in. :) Buttons are for PCB, so you can mount it on a vector board. I am perfectionist, that`s why it seems like a lot of work. I just made few sugestions how things can looks perfect even they are from trash. Try to make one.

Answer: yes I want A LOT of it on my box! ;D ;D ;D

[raphael]

take it to CNC laser cutters

..if you have one at hands ;D ;D ;D

[Davo]

I've seen round plexiglas rods before.  I'm not sure where to get them now, but they seem to be commonly used on venetian blinds.  Perhaps you can cannibalize some old curtains and blinds to get rods.

[Sasha]

I'm not sure where to get them now, but they seem to be commonly used on venetian blinds.  Perhaps you can cannibalize some old curtains and blinds to get rods.

That`s also good idea. I just have one on my window, but it is hexagonal what also could be interesting. Damn man, now I have to canibalise mine, which is in use, because of you nasty sugestion. ;D

We are one great recycling community.

[Steven_C]

Very nice mini-tutorial! Looks good.

[Sasha]

Thx, I`m glad I can help about this things, but I wish I could help ... first to myself, and also to others to build working midibox. :P I`m still batling with it.  ??? :(

[pilo]

Thank you Sasa!

maybe it's the solution for the swtich of my midibox? sounds great! :)

[Sasha]

Same idea but except that you cannot use momentary buttons from the PC keyboard.

If I understand you correctly you want it for power on/off.

[pilo]

Oh I was speaking about the switchES (I make a lot of mistake  :-[).

I know where I can buy some acrylic rod (which I think should be as good as pvc for this?), but I don't know how to cut it well... Any idea on how to make a cutting mahcine for this? (I have a loooots of step motor here...).

[Sasha]

(which I think should be as good as pvc for this?)

Not as good, acrylic it`s much better. You wan`t find much acrylic industry buttons because PVC is cheaper material.

Any idea on how to make a cutting mahcine for this

There is machine for this, but since I don`t know the name of it I draw one ugly for ya.

If you have some skills with metal you can make one easily out of ordinary "rotating cutter" ...not out of step motors!  ;D

But I think you actually only need a piece like on the image below. You can make it of wood blocks or you can buy plastic one. Also don`t know it`s name :) It`s use is for square cutting. I`m sure you can get enough good results by cutting with hand saw (small teeths). You just need the 90 deg. cuts. After cutting you are going to sand those cutts with sandpaper anyway. The blue part determines the lenght of button bars. If you make more than one button it is very usfull.

If somebody knows the right names I`m missing here feel fee to aducate me. :P

[mikeb]

There is machine for this, but since I don`t know the name of it I draw one ugly for ya.

Sasha do you mean a compound miter saw like this?

[Sasha]

Yeah, that`s tha machine! :) Thx Mike!

[moxi]

hi ,yourr butons look great ,but maybe it could be easier to do only one buton ,then to mould the other with polyester resin,

i've done this for some art piece ,and will probably do this for my next box.

you need : polyester resine ,a link in french:

http://www.mecanoplast.fr/html/polyester_1.htm

                silicone past ("silicone élastomère" in french) :here you can see how it look like :

http://www.pascalrosier.com/conseil/exemples/figurine/figurine.htm

if you buy your resin in a boat shop ,you will pay it about 15euros for 10 liter , the silicone is more expansive ,(15 euros/liter ,but you need realy little quantities)....

i will give you more info when i will start to produce buton (and maybe knob) by this way....

[Sasha]

Maaan! That polyester resin technique sounds great! Not only because of possibility for small-serial production, It`s great because you can make everything as you like - totaly custom. Bad is that we don`t have boat shops here. You can buy it only on a 200 liters directly from the chemical company. Little too much for knobs and buttons. :) But I think I can find some for me. How is your experience in making small parts of it? Do you have some tips, pix or some usefull website (English pease)? I`m really interesting in this. Also would be nice to build a non-square midibox with lots of curves. Sexy! :P There`s not much freedom designing flat panell case. Maybe to build a fiberglass case on which you screw aluminum pannel/s.... or maybe... Reeally usefull!

[Jidis]

I've done a bunch of stuff like that using regular bondo (fiberglass body filler) and two part epoxy/resin, but nothing really small (yet). I'm not near any marine shops either, but this stuff is pretty common at home centers and automotive places. I'm currently trying to hone up my enclosure molding skills after being inspired by Pierre Crozat's box in the gallery. Most of what I've done has been solid 3 dimensional stuff, where I could work with two "half molds", flatten out the two pieces on a belt sander after they came out, and then glue them together. I'm just now getting into the two part "male/female" molds, where I can do thinner, lighter stuff like enclosures. Right now I'm doing a box for a WinAMP LCD with some buttons, and am hoping to do an MPC style drum trigger box if it goes OK. If anyone's interested, I took some step by step pictures of the LCD mold if someone here has somewhere I could put them (only about a floppy's worth).

I started off doing drum shells with actual cloth and resin, which doesn't conform well to tight bends or small spaces. My recipe for this other stuff is far from scientific.  I just dump a big glob of the bondo in a bowl and pour in enough liquid resin to get sort of an "in-between" mix, and then add as much hardener as needed (both the red bondo hardener and the liquid). I probably mix the bondo, resin and hardener differently each time, but I've never gotten bad results. Worst case, it takes a bit longer to dry. I'm not sure those two products are supposed to be mixed, but it's probably all the same stuff anyway. One book I have recommends making your own mix out of some kind of dry, chopped strand fiber, or chopping up regular fiberglass cloth. I have a feeling even the plain resin with no glass would be strong enough for our purposes, assuming it was a decent thickness.

I'm not only thinking of doing the enclosure for a drum machine now, but maybe even the buttons themselves. I was going to do piezos glued to metal plates with a layer of rubber on top, but now I'm thinking of some smoothly shaped fiberglass buttons. You could make a batch plaster form and do a bunch at a time like ice cubes. I'm also thinking that the piezo elements themselves could maybe be submerged in the fresh fiberglass mixture with the wires sticking out the back or the side. It seems rigid enough to transfer the vibrations, and it would be impossible for the piezo inside to loosen up or break. I guess metal or anything else could go in there as well, if need be. The whole button could sit on a rubber or foam pad to prevent cross triggering (that might stick to the fresh fiberglass too??). While you're out shopping, there's also a cool liquid latex in the craft stores. It's coincidentally used for mold making, but I've used it for coating fiberglass hand grips with a layer of rubber. It dries almost clear and would make for some nice looking rubberized trigger pads. With enough coats, a fiberglass button would feel about like a rubber one and you'd have more color/shape options. I've mixed it with latex paint too, but it didn't mix well and it probably isn't necessary.         

                           -George