The first type of button are these microswitches which I received erroneously in a banggood order (got a bag of 100 rather than the actually purchased filament I wanted ).
My attempt to surface mount them is currently just a bracket to hold the switch in place.
The theory being that I can then merge these with the lid of my project and place the switches where I want them with everything printed in place.
The circular part of the switch sort of looks like this internally:
Code: Select all
xxxx ++++ xxxx <- surface
xxxx ++++ xxxx
xx ++++ xx
xx ++++ xx
xx ++++++++ xx
xx ++++++++ xx
xx ++++ xx
xx ++++ xx
xx ++++ xx
xxxx ++++ xxxx
bb bb <- button goes here
bb bb
It's very tight and currently tuned to print at 0.3mm layers (haven't tried lower, but suspect it should be fine) - as in the ascii art, it consists of 10 layers and theoretically allows a maximum drop of 4 layers (but this is of course less so the movement of the inner cylinder is barely perceptible - when the button is in place, you hear the satisfying click of the switch when you press on the circle).
Vaguely planning to extend this mechanism to other types of switches but wondered if anyone had any advice on the approach.
I've attached an STL of the bracket if anyone wants to slice it and check it out in more detail. Someone printing and taking a photo would be nice, but without the corresponding switch, it's fundamentally useless (well, it's useless with it too, but at least I get that nice click ).
I should have space to further mount a button on top to make it less subtle, but as a starting point, this seemed pretty good to me. There maybe better ways to handle it? Any suggestions would be appreciated.