Buttons! Tell me about your design for keypad buttons...

I have been doing integrated buttons (i.e. keypad buttons) a few different ways, but I've never really been completely happy with how they have turned out.

I'm not going to go into detail on my methods yet, as I want to keep from contaminating responses for the time being.

Few questions:

How do you build them?

How do you capture them into a panel?

What tactile switches do you prefer?

The way im doing them for now, is to cut them with my CNC Router, making a 1mm Wider piece at the bottom, which when placed in the panel from behind, it cant fall out.

I use Acrylic, and i cut quite a few of them at a time, then i paint them all at once, before they are seperated, and then when they are dry and engraved, i again use the CNC to Seperate them.

The making of them are abit more time consuming than making a simple panel light plate, and the painting of the buttons are also abit more complex, but when its done they look really nice.

You can see the result on my Prototype UFC here: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2411448&postcount=81

Dont mind the "4" button, that one didnt turn out so nice. And also the engravings where a little too deep, and look Grayish due to the Opaque Acrylic i used.

I then place a pretty normal Tactile switch right underneath, and if one would want, you could place a spring between the Button and the tabtile switch, so that it have a little "travel" before it clicks.

I have also been playing abit with foam and rubber between them, so give them the soft feel before the tactile is activated.

My technique are not perfected yet, but there is allways room for improvement, right :)

Great stuff Lynx. I've realized lately that we talk software, electronics, and dimensions to great lengths here, but sometimes we don't get into the nitty gritty of various techniques.

Do you prefer illuminated tacts, or a standard tact with LEDs placed in close proximity for backlighting the switches?

Your right :)

I prefer the Normal tactile's without light, and then place LED's behind or right next to them. Ive had a bunch of illuminated switches, and they didnt emit the same color as the rest of the panels, that annoyed me too much :P