More cheap molded button caps-

[Jidis]

I just made some caps to go on the board I just finished. Hope this isn't too much of a mess, but you could probably get the idea just from the pictures. It was really sloppy, but they still look OK. Maybe someone here can use something in it to get some ideas for a more refined version.

Started with a sheet of 1/4" Plexiglas with 3/8" holes drilled in it, and hot-melt-glued it to a sheet of MDF (medium density fiberboard):

Before they were glued together, I held them together, sprayed some puffs of paint on the top to mark the circle locations on the MDF, and tapped some small finish nails through the centers of all the circles. The heads were chopped off by a Dremel tool, so they wouldn't get stuck in the caps, and the nails were all sunk into the MDF so they sat up about an eighth of an inch. Then the plexi was re-centered and glued onto the MDF:

I sprayed it with some WD-40 (only thing I had on hand) and filled it with a mix of fiberglass resin, hardener, and a couple drops of white enamel paint (didn't know if they'd be painted later). When dry, I hit it with a belt sander to remove the excess:

I pried the plexi away from the MDF to get this (after removing some buttons):

As you can see, the FG dripped under the MDF, so I had to snap away the edge to get them off:

<-The one in the front has already been sanded.

They were lightly sanded to clean them up, by chucking them into the Dremel and holding paper against them (with gloves):

While still held in the chuck, I pulled each one off of it's nail and widened the nail holes with a drill bit and bit stop:

Some of the nails slipped a little, and let the caps spin, but ideally, they shouldn't need the spinning anyway. ;)

That's about it. :)

Here they are raw:

Then sprayed with gray primer and some clear lacquer, and permanently attached with a glob of JB Weld epoxy in the holes:

Sad, but I liked the board better with the raw switches. :'(

- the hell with it anyway ;D  (I guess they'd look OK for something behind a panel)

[Sasha]

I love photo tutorials, and enjoing making it myself. It is much interesting then plain text. Also, I think the buttons turned pretty good. What is this PCB? DIN + DOUT?

[Jidis]

Thanks Sasa!

Yeah, it's just a switch/light board for playing with stuff. It's two 595's and a 165. I made it so it could be chained to another,etc., but it was such a pain in the ass, it isn't worth doing any more (too many vias and jumpers). :(

George

[Sasha]

Yeah, I wanted to make same thing but I`m not good with eagle. I always stuck while finding the parts in library.

I hate jumperwires, and I rather connect 2 boards with wires than jumpwire the one board.

[Jidis]

I hate jumperwires, and I rather connect 2 boards with wires than jumpwire the one board.

I'm the same way, but I've finally decided that if I'm never going to make anything more than once, I may as well just get as close as I can with the layout, then run a bunch of wires for the leftover.

Funny you mention the two board thing. I was thinking a while back, of trying to do some modules where the Core,etc. plugged directly into the i/o boards in a "piggyback" style, maybe with standoffs and nuts/bolts holding them at the corners. This last board got me thinking of a similar idea, but rather than headers & sockets, if you had two boards of identical size, did as much of the traces as you could on each one, then cut a handful of jumper wire (maybe 3 or 4 inches each) and just wired them directly to pad holes, so you had two boards chained together, then rotated one a couple times to twist all the wires together, "squashed" the wiring in-between the two boards (like a sandwich ::)), then installed the standoffs and screws to hold it together. Might look sort of cool if it worked and might make the layout easy, as you could jump from any point on the board to any other with no visible wires, plus you'd have the extra board space of a "pair" of boards (unlike regular two layer PCB).

Take Care,

George