Chest Buttons

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Modifying Buttons to be working lighted Chest Buttons.

First off I found 10 lighted 1" square pushbuttons for $3.45 each. And of course they are surplus so they may not be available forever. From my favorite surplus place All Electronics. Most B9'ers know that the chest buttons were not square, but rectangular, but these are just to provide the operation and lighting from behind the chest bezel with the actual size and color button fronts.

Click on link below to go to All Electronics

12V LIGHTED PUSHBUTTON, WHITE 1" SQUARE

Momentary-action, S.P.D.T lighted pushbutton switch for displays and games. The rugged snap-action switch assembly is designed for millions of operations. White 1" square polycarbonate lens. Rated 5 Amps @ 125/250 Vac. The assembly is lighted with a replaceable 12 Volt, 3 Watt, #161 wedge-base lamp. Matte black plastic 1.29" diameter x 0.13" high bezel. Top of switch sits in a 1.1" recessed square which prevents rotation. 0.93" diameter threaded bushing with a plastic nut mounts in panels up to 0.70" thick. See spec sheet for mechanical drawings.

See notes near bottom of this page for general info on using "momentary" switches.

For the Bezel and front buttons, I am now using Craig Reinbrecht's new reproductions. They are excellent and available on the clubsite vendor listings.

The first thing I did was to disassemble the switch and toss the 'huge' square backer plate and the large washer.

You can see from the backside of the switch how the outer bezel protrudes way beyond the switch enclosure itself. This has to go to be able to fit the switches close enough together behind the bezel.

Same goes for the nut, it will have to be ground down.

Here it is on the 1" emery belt sander using an 80 grit belt sanding off the excess edges. Just beware with these switches and the modifications of sanding them down, you have to be patient and have a steady hand and take

your time lest you sand your fingers or ruin the switch itself!

Same goes for the nuts. They actually have to get sanded down quite thin. You can see in the second picture here that they need to be thin to fit close together.

I had to sand the walls on 3 sides of the switches down to about 1/2 of their original thickness to get the switches to set close enough toghther to fit behind the bezel and to stack properly 2 high. You can see I removed the center guts here.

By carefully removing the spring from behind its retainers, you can 'unscrew' it out of the assembly to remove it.

You do need to disassemble it to remove the built in diffuser. This diffuser will interfere with the proper color of the reproduction buttons. Craig provides the proper diffusers with his buttons and they will be mounted as part of the switch button front outside of this switch assembly.

This is what the inner parts look like.

Re-assemble the switch without the diffuser, just using the clear front.

This is how they line up behind the bezel.

Just a stack up of them.

Another lineup behind the bezel.

Making of the backer plate to hold the switches. Using the speedbor type bits to drill the 1" holes. Half way through 1/8" acrylic and then turn over and drill through. Just like drilling holes in the torso as my club fellow builder, Jim Rauch, reminded me as he was experimenting with these switches at the same time I was.

If you want a template to make one of these here you go, a pdf file. Click on this link to download below. I used the template to mark the centers of all the holes, they are very close, so you want to be accurate.

Chest Button Template PDF

or here is the drawing

Not bad for an amateur.

Using some fine emery paper to smooth the edges. That's my paper template in the background.

Since my heater was heating the garage anyway, I used it to heat the plastic backer plate to form it to the right radius to fit the torso.

I just heated the plastic plate and formed it to fit Craig's aluminum bezel as a template. Clamped it until it cooled.

Install the switches in the backer plate. I started in the center because this is a tight assembly and there is not much room for your fingers while assembling it. Finger tight on these nuts is plenty. Note how thin they had to be ground to fit. Also note that I marked to top of the switches so I did not install them wrong. When you go to install the micro switch/light assembly they have to be in the proper postion. Also I didn't grind down the top of the switch, only the centers that mate against the bottom row of switches.

Adding more in place.

Buttons all installed, switches snapped into the back.

Just a top view. Note my top dots for assembly convienence.

The bezel sitting on top to see fit up.

Nice back view of the actual switch portion of the assembly. As close as they can possibly get.

These are not the final wires for the lights, just ones I had with quick connects on them for a try out of the lights. You can see here that the light connections are on either side of each switch.

Now these will have the brightness I am looking for.

My robot must walk, move, talk and his lights must be BRIGHT!

I will be installing this assembly in the torso with Craig's new bezel and button fronts. Can't wait to see the finished product.

More to come, I'll have pics on that too!

Notes on Momentary Switch use:

The 12volt lights are separately powered from the switch. As they come there are no interlocks as some lighted push buttons have. Truly just a momentary switch. (Some switches internally switch on/off their own light or led and remain on when pushed once, and then when pushed again the sw releases and turns off and they can be pricey.)

If you want the light in these switches to go off and on by pushing the switch you will have to design that into the external control circuit in addition to whatever you want the switch to control. There are several ways to do all of that, with electronics or even with relays.

Coming up with 10 different things to do with them may be a lot anyway. You could for instance set up pairs of 5 switches for 5 functions, push one that latches on a relay and turns on a function and the one next to it or below it when pushed would de-energize the relay and turn off the function.

You would need a 3PDT relay to do this for each pair of switches, 1 pole latches on the relay, 1 pole energizes that pair of

switch lights and 1 pole controls whatever robot function you want. I will be putting a diagram here for the relay method soon.

An electronic controller to eliminate the 5 relays would be nice, but that may be a way off. Relays are simple and relatively cheap if all you want is to turn a few things on and off. With relays you can't easily change the functions

without rewiring as you could do with a programmable or electronic controller board.

4PDT Relays 12VDC coil = CAT# 4PRLY-12

14 PIN RELAY SOCKET CAT# PRLY-S

KH RELAY HOLD-DOWN SPRING CAT# RSP-1

More to Come

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