DIY illuminated buton, Datawheel for the MIDIbox Community

[stryd_one]

Just a suggestion... if you bend the legs on the LEDs in a certain way, it can reduce the stress placed on the solder joint... Try this:

      _____ stress will go here

    |

    v

    __

  /  \      XXXXXX

  |    |      X cap X

  |    |__xxxxxxxxxxx

  |            *TACT*

=|========|==|========= PCB

  V              V  V

 

  ^

  |______ relieves stress here

(not to scale)  ;)

[moxi]

the travel of the tact switch is really short so there is no problem, but your idea is good...

[ranger930]

Hi guys,

what about the frontpanel ?

if it is out of metal, you shortcut the led ?

an isolation material between panel and led ?

the button looks really great and cool,

greetz

ranger930

[moxi]

there is 7mm between the dot and the top of the cap, as the travel of the tact switch is less than 1mm, there is still about 2-3mm of empty space even if you use 4mm panel... but that true, it could be better to  add à non conductive sheet on the back side of my panels.

[moxi]

hi,

i've tested the caps with green leds, the result is really cool!!:

the caps are blue when not lighted and really green when on!! :)

off:

on:

for those who already ask me for caps, check your mail or your PM..

for the others:

i can do caps for a great price:

for the colour of the caps, i can do them blue, blue-green or white "cream", test with other colour don't works for the while. I can't do red lighted ones cause i can't find red leds that are enough short to fit the cap...if you wan't multi-colour or blue leds, i've not enough money to order them by myself, so it's possible only if you send me the leds before.

-the 10 caps with leds (yellow or green) for 2 Euros

-if you don't need lighted buton: the 10 caps without leds :1 Euro (in this case you have the choice between two type of caps:

)

-the 10 Tact-switch that fit with them for 1.50Euros (so you get 10 lighted butons for 3.5 Euros)

-the shipping cost with standart mail won't exceed 3 to 5 Euros, depending the country where you're living, for France ,1.5 Euro is enough!)

note: i don't do that in a commercial way, i've first to get my investissment back, and if there is any benefice, it will be used to do new molds ;)

re-note: for the datawheel, the molds don't work, what i can propose if there is enough people interested is to try to mold only the upper side of a datawheel, and let people drill by themself the hole on the back side.

[Screaming_Rabbit]

hey Moxi,

I meant using the pressure cooker as a vacuum vessel, will be very well sealed and u can pick them up cheap at charity shops/ebay etc...

... be carefull with that: Something being pressure resistant doesn't say it's vacuum resistant!!! And an implosion can be very dangerous too.

Greets, Roger

[moxi]

... be carefull with that: Something being pressure resistant doesn't say it's vacuum resistant!!! And an implosion can be very dangerous too.

don't worry, for the while i remove the bubble just with à tiny part of metal, one by one as i'm filling the mold...less dangerous....maybe when i will have sold 2 or 3 thousand of caps , i will invest in a dedicated pump  ;D

the most dangerous things for the while are the vapors...if you plan to use this technique, please spend some bucks for a good  mask !

[Jaicen]

Moxi, those buttons are brilliant!

I'm seriously considering some for my up-coming 808 clone, (when someone does the hard work and finishes a sequencer for me ;) ).

[Mr modnaR]

... be carefull with that: Something being pressure resistant doesn't say it's vacuum resistant!!! And an implosion can be very dangerous too.

Greets, Roger

yeah i was about to say that! i think you'll find that most pressure cookers won't take vacuum. you need a short piece of 8-inch gas piping or something similar. plate the ends over with something thick, bolt down and seal one end, then put thin neoprene seal on other end to enable it to be opened easily, and voila!

[Dolphinicus]

Hey Moxi. :)  Are you still doing illuminated buttons for others here?  :D

I'm just in the very beginnings of putting together my first Core and sub modules for my first MIDIbox.  (Definately planning on doing more than 1! :D )  I've been working out designs for my own buttons over the last couple of days.  Whilst I've definately decided to go with tact switches, until I saw YOUR method, I was going to make buttons out wooden dowels, with a a disc on each end of a dowel and a spring between the discs, to keep the disc on top of the panel, pushed up.  (All of the panels in my modular are made of wood - which I'm preferring to stay with, in as many ways as possible).

But NOW that I've seen your illuminated buttons, I LOVE THAT idea!!

Actually - thinking it through further - it might be better if I made the buttons myself.  (My panels are 5/16ths of an inch thick, and I would need buttons to be at least that high, to come through the panel.)

Could you list the ingredients that you use to make the compound around the LED?  With myself using (potentially) all other colours except red (for LEDs), as well as possibly dual colour LEDs, I think it'd be better if I made them myself.  That way I could do as many button colours as I will be requiring, for each function.

Anyhoo ...... thanks for any help. :)  I hope to have the very beginnings of my first MIDIbox up and running within a couple of weeks.  (Just have to get the rest of the parts that I need, first. ;) )

Take care,

Warmth and Peace,

Ryk

http://www.sdiy.org/damian - my modular synthesizer's homepage

[moxi]

hi Dolphinicus,

Hey Moxi. Smiley  Are you still doing illuminated buttons for others here?

yes, i've just to order some lots of leds before

to make button yourself, you need "RTV Silicone", it's the more expensive material. It's the material you will use to make your mold.

then you need "polyester resin", there is many type, choose a clear one that support inclusion. Resin is expensive if you buy it in art shop, just look for a dealer of marine/boat material, you will find it cheaper in biggest quantity (from my side i pay 5Kg 15Euros).

to color the resin, you need powder pigments, you can find them in art shop, then, you have to make some tests, some color will react fine, other no, here there is some chemical mystery i can't explain...just test!

for the LEDs, search on Ebay for lots of 100, I use 3mm LEDs, you have to take care that the ones you choose are not too long.

you need a solvant product called "acetone", you will find it in the shop that is selling resin, you need this product to clean your tools and probably your hands too ;)

and it's better to use a mask to protect you from dangerous vapours (for the sillicone and the resin)

you will need some box to hold your mold, be inventive ;)

[Mr modnaR]

by 'coloured pigments' what do you mean? are these specifically for use with resin?

thanks

[moxi]

colored pigment I use are not specifally for use with resin, there are mainly used to make paint, some of them can be mixed with water or with oil or acrylic solvant.

[Dolphinicus]

Thank you greatly for all of the ingredients that you mentioned, Moxi! :D

Thinking about it whilst I was at work today, I'm going to see about getting either Wax or Balsa Wood, to carve the shapes of my buttons on.  I'll then set them down on a flat area and pour Plaster of Paris over them.  When it's hardened, I'll then insert my LEDs and fill the remainder of the button holes with the resin, which I learned from work, where I can pick up. :)

I'm going to go with larger buttons, to make them easier to hit quickly (when needed) as well as large enough to hold 5mm LEDs, which I have 7 colours of. :)  (As well as 2 shades of blue and 2 shades of green - for 9 colours. :D )

If all works well, I could have my Core, DIn, DOut and 2x20 display up and running for testing, this weekend. :D  (Not with the buttons though, as I don't have any tact switches yet.)

[Jidis]

colored pigment I use are not specifally for use with resin, there are mainly used to make paint, some of them can be mixed with water or with oil or acrylic solvant.

Moxi, I was meaning to mention, a while back I needed some "insert caps" for some cheap black knobs I had put on a box here, and mixed my FG resin with a couple drops of regular Testors brand brush on enamel (comes in those tiny little bottles at hobby stores here in the US). It looked great, but maybe I didn't use enough hardener (random mix) because it took way too long for all of them to totally cure. Leaves a world of possibilities "colorwise" though.

I've been meaning to shop around here for the stuff you mentioned for creating the "hazy white look" for the backlits. I'll look into the colored pigments too. Sounds like a safer choice with something as particular as resin. ;)

Here's a crappy picture where you can see a knob:

Setting them all flat on a table, you can carefully pour just about anything into the center to get a neat looking cap. With the thickness of the resin at the right "cure point", you can actually pour it in until it forms sort of a "dome" (it builds up at the center).

BTW- That's one of the regular knobs for the ribbed 1/4" shaft, where they give you those flat snap-in colored inserts that always get bumped out and lost. :P

George

PS @Dolphinicus - For the button modeling thing you're talking about doing, if you're going with round ones on anything, you might try to see if you can chuck them into a drill etc., for nice consistent symmetry. I've done that a bunch with metal and the occasional wood (dowel stock). Only downside is the chuck capacity is usually 3/8" or less, and soft stuff can also get crunched pretty easily. Other than that, if it's spinning fast enough, you can burn away at it with sandpaper or files and get a really smooth finish pretty quickly.

[stryd_one]

Wax or Balsa Wood

I'd go with wax - much easier to put some back on if you carve too deep... But will it withstand the RTV juice?

[Mr modnaR]

colored pigment I use are not specifally for use with resin, there are mainly used to make paint, some of them can be mixed with water or with oil or acrylic solvant.

ahh, ok thanks. are there coloured pigments/dyes for use with resin? my dad uses resins all the time to cast his sculptures with and in, so i know there's white and black, i've asked him but he doesn't know of anywhere. an interesting point: powdered metal can be mixed with the resin to give a metallic finish if required.

[Dolphinicus]

Hey George / Stryd! :D  Much-o thanks for the drill tip, George! :D  I just happen to have a 5/8" chuck Makita, that I'd bought for my previous job.  I'd pondered using a drill a work, yesterday, but I weren't sure what to 'carve' the button with, if I did it with wax.

Thanks for mentioning as well Stryd, that I can add the wax back if I take off too much! :D  I had NOT thought of that. :o  Duhhhh.  :D

I may have to experiment with the speed of the drill.  And with the grit of sandpaper, which will plug up very quickly, using wax.

I COULD just go with a dowel, in the 1st place as I had thought of - but that'd take a lot more time for carving the button tip itself.  (I'd like to do as many button carvings as possible, as I'm hoping to have a button per step for each of 4 channels.  That's 64 buttons and 64 LEDs right there. :o :o  (Uh oh.  I have to order more, me thinks. :o :) )

Now - if'n I'm rem'bering correctly - I'm not using the RTV silicone, as I'm make the mold with the Plaster of Paris. ;)  (Have worked with it for molding and carving, in the early 90's).  Carving -> Plaster -> Resin -> LED'd button. :D

I'm going to try the drill first.  If it wont work out properly, then I'll come back to carving / shaping, by hand.

Part of the reasoning FOR going with wax, I'm also hoping to carve initials into the Track buttons for each instrument. :D  (BD for Bass Drum; SN for Snare and either HH1 / HH2 for Hihats, or something else for the other 2.)  And the standard industry shapes for Play, Pause, Rewind, Forward, Stop.  |>, ||, <, > [ ]

IF, I'm lucky - I'll be able to find tact switches in stock here, this weekend. :)

Parts tip for everyone:  If you wish to save a fair bit of money for making cables - get yourself some old Hard Drive / CD drive / 3 1/2" drive ribbon cables! :D  Theyr'e EVERYWHERE and cheap if not free! :D

Whatchya get?  A 34 pin (at least) IDC connector at, at least 1 end.  You can use a hacksaw or Dremel tool, to split these in to the 10 pin (2 rows of 5 pins) connectors (3, from a 34 pin connector) and you've got a pile of ribbon cable included to boot! :)  And a lot of it - already hooked up from connector to connector! :D  I scored 5 of them from a co-worker yesterday. :)  That's saved me at least $20 in parts.  Majorly happy about that! :D

Off to reading / more learning and final soldering for my 4 modules. :)

[Jidis]

Yeah, I think 90% of my ribbons started off longer. Just remember you lose all that nice "snap lock" junk when you slice off the end, so you may need a glob of epoxy or something to see that they don't fall apart later. Wish that sort of stuff was easier to get in this town. I'm getting to be too much of a scavenger these days. IDC/crimp stuff like that works out OK for me, but the "desoldered" parts are getting to be a mess. It's surprising you don't see "starter kit" variety packs of stuff like that on eBay. You either buy a hundred of one specific part on there, or you buy five of them for two cents less than what they go for at DigiKey.

BTW- The spinning thing is just something to look into. I'm sure it's not perfect for all materials, and I've usually not only done it in a drill press with a table, but done it with metal parts like soldering iron tips. I've also slipped larger things onto 1/4" bolts (with a center hole in the part) and clamped them tight with a nut, using the bolt as a shank in the drill chuck. Depending on what it is, I guess you can putty the hole up afterward. Plastic dowel rod seems like it would be great for those too, if you didn't let it get gooey.

I've made a bunch of non-electronic parts using resin mixed with some body filler (Bondo, which is also part resin). For the model stage, regular cheap gray modeling clay from the craft store has worked well, and as Stryd suggested with the wax, it's easy to stick a clump back on to build things up. I've usually gone with plaster for the mold itself. Just grease everything well, so it comes out easy.

I like your idea of labels inset into the part too. Be nice if you could find a way to stamp them or something, so they don't look hand carved.

Take Care,

George 

[Mr modnaR]

Just grease everything well, so it comes out easy.

yeah i meant to say: wax works pretty well too, plus you can polish it up to a fine finish. they use wax in boatmaking, that much i do know, but the molds are resin/fibreglass not plaster, so not sure how well that would work. i remember making a mold in plaster in art class at school, and the forgetting to wax it before pouring clear resin in! boy that was a few lessons wasted in chipping the plaster off!!! ;D

[Jidis]

Hell, try getting a foot long, 14" diameter drum shell off of a giant cylinder form, which looked like an axial lead cap. The surface was sanded, waxed, and had the crap greased out of it before the FG went on, and it wouldn't even budge. I ended up sawing it into two 6" halves (needed to do that anyway). Even then, I had to knock on it with a mallet, pry at it with a screwdriver, and everything else you can imagine. That's always a scary part of the process after spending so much time on it. Other stuff will also make a really frightening "crack" when you finally break it free from the mold. A book I've got mentions special mold release agents, but petroleum jelly and wax both seem to work OK.

BTW- Eventually got those shells off, only to discover that they were ruined from birth (too large a diameter and a form which wasn't perfectly round). Been meaning to try again, but it was a headache I don't like looking back on. >:(

George

[Mr modnaR]

lol, cool story.

@moxi/anyone who knows:

can you use this RTV silicone to make lit buttons with? if so, how flexible is it? also, how transluscent is it?

many thanks.

[moxi]

RTV silicone is perfect for rubber button, it's well flexible, but the material is white, and I didn't find any way to make it translucent...I have done some "mpc like" pads with silicone RTV, I have added some dark pigment to obtain a great grey, you should find some pics of them somewhere on the forum.

[Mr modnaR]

is there no way of getting transluscent rubber buttons then? i was thinking along the lines of using silicone sealer, which is not pourable, but is transluscent and flexible. the only problem is that it is probably too squishy. any ideas?

[Jidis]

i was thinking along the lines of using silicone sealer, which is not pourable, but is translucent and flexible.

Bingo!! ;D

I wanted to try the same thing a few weeks back, being as the tube stuff (I guess that's what you mean) is easy as heck to get. I used to sell it, and have seen (smelled) boxes of it run over by a forklift. IIRC, the hardened globs were about the right consistency, and didn't feel too squishy for pushbuttons. In fact, they were about what the clear/white buttons on your average A/V remote feel like these days. Seems like if you mixed just the right amount of the white with some of the clear, you'd be able to find the right shade for "glow-thru".

My question was actually on how to get the stuff thinned out enough (while wet) that it could be poured into such an intricate small shape. What do you cut it with to keep from ruining it?

George

<edit> just realized-- Bad choice of words for non-English translation. By "cut it", I meant mix or dilute it, to water it down (acetone maybe??).