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guitar stompbox button question


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Hey guys,

I haven't checked recently, but months ago I spent a while searching the forums for good foot switches for a midi foot controller (for a guitar rig). So far, I've found this http://www.smallbearelec.com/Detail.bok?no=672 to be the best quality/price. Has anyone tried these before, or does anyone have better suggestions? Also, has anyone dealt with this company? I am looking for something rugged that will fire without excessive force (I don't like slamming my foot down while playing guitar heh). Most "good" switches seem to cost $6+ (which sucks if you want to order 10 of them). I've also noticed companies like digitech tend to use tactile switches with plastic covers... but I've actually had those get "glitchy" in the past with repeated use, so I'd rather go with the more rugged, "harder to push", buttons. Finally, I want to mount the switches directly on the enclosure (a steel Hammond box) to simplify assembly.

Anyways, thanks for reading and thanks ahead for any feedback :)

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...

So far, I've found this http://www.smallbearelec.com/Detail.bok?no=672 to be the best quality/price. Has anyone tried these before, or does anyone have better suggestions? Also, has anyone dealt with this company?

...

I have bought from small bear, A++ good dealer.

I have a bag of those switches and they are my favorite for foot switches, but note that you will need to debounce them.  I have yet to find a heavy duty momentary switch with snap action...

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I have a bag of those switches and they are my favorite for foot switches, but note that you will need to debounce them.  I have yet to find a heavy duty momentary switch with snap action...

Debounce them? Are you referring to the MIOS method or is this something I have to do the switch? Please elaborate. Otherwise, I'll be ordering some switches soon :)

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Wikipedia has this to say about debouncing.

Contact bounce (also called chatter) is a common problem with mechanical switches and relays. Switch and relay contacts are usually made of springy metals that are forced into contact by an actuator. When the contacts strike together, their momentum and elasticity act together to cause bounce. The result is a rapidly pulsed electrical current instead of a clean transition from zero to full current. The waveform is then further modified by the parasitic inductances and capacitances in the switch and wiring, resulting in a series of damped sinusoidal oscillations. This effect is usually unnoticeable in AC mains circuits, where the bounce happens too quickly to affect most equipment, but causes problems in some analogue and logic circuits that are not designed to cope with oscillating voltages.

Sequential digital logic circuits are particularly vulnerable to contact bounce. The voltage waveform produced by switch bounce usually violates the amplitude and timing specifications of the logic circuit. The result is that the circuit may fail, due to problems such as metastability, race conditions, runt pulses and glitches.

There are a number of techniques for debouncing (mitigating the effects of switch bounce). They can be split into timing based techniques and Hysteresis based techniques.

Basically it results in a messy output from the switch, rather than nice on and off signal you end up with almost a noisy wave as the switch "settles" which can cause problems with the rest of your circuit.

Check out some debouncing circuits here http://www.mitedu.freeserve.co.uk/Design/debounce.htm.

              G

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hi

i think that J... Jimp referred to MIOS debouncing

i used those buttons in a modified Alesis floorboard they were the same as those ones used by Alesis and you can be sure that wi ll work in a MB without any extra debouncing hardware, to be honest i think i remember i didn t use any software debouncing either, i will check that later.

simone

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hi

i think that J... Jimp referred to MIOS debouncing

i used those buttons in a modified Alesis floorboard they were the same as those ones used by Alesis and you can be sure that wi ll work in a MB without any extra debouncing hardware, to be honest i think i remember i didn t use any software debouncing either, i will check that later.

simone

yes, i meant software debouncing (in MIOS), which i still recommend with these even if cimo didn't use it before...

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  • 2 months later...

I know this is an old thread but just thought I'd jump in as I'm from DIY Stompbox Forum and Steve from Small Bear comes on quite a bit. I haven't personally bought anything from Steve yet but I have never heard any bad press about him yet.

He gets some cool stuff in and also he asks if you need anything and stocks them for you. Not sure if he has the LINE 6 actuators in but you could try them too. They are the ones on the FM4 etc. Otherwise Banzai are pretty cool  and carry them . I think they end up at about $2 each or you could go to Line 6 as they sell them there in stocks of 4 . Maybe you could Email STeve at small bear and ask him what he advises.

Hope this helps and feel free to come over to our site we are quite friendly (not like Harmony Central!)

We could do with MIDI project guys coming over and helping us out every now and again

Cheers

AUS

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...
Quote from: bugfight on 2007-11-28 at 22:18

hehe, we denizens of the chat should avoid using chat abbreviations in the forum i think...

Good call man, I was thinking the same today... For example what If I search for 'smashtv'........

.. just wave the voodoo chicken

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