Control panel hardware buttons

blazini36 wrote:

Not sure if you've ever been in a factory environment but operators have all sorts of Cheeto and Dorito dust on their hands when they touch anything. 

My professional universe could be summed up as "Industrial filth & destruction."  We'll swap war stories when you get here.

BTW, we're GTG.  I'll send my number this evening and we can sort out details over the phone.

It's (almost) alive...

 

That is coming along nicely.

Thanks, Kind of stalled a bit while I wait for components for the custom PCBs and other random stuff

OK so it looks like I'm bringing this thread back to the original question if anybody's still with me, I'll make a new thread to show-and tell.....

I made a matrix key panel, it turned out fairly well but it's too costly to make with the lighted tactile pushbuttons.......
 

The clear acrylic is just temporary since I had it on hand.

I'm thinking of making these from a conductive rubber pad as I can still backlight them but I can't get keycaps for those for a reasonable price so the universal label Idea is kind of shot. I can have the rubber printed though so I need to have a layout ahead of time......

I'm used to just using a touchscreen so I have no idea what would make sense to put on these buttons if I have them printed so that's where I'm looking for suggestions on that 32 key matrix. I already have axis select, incriment, run, stop, rapid OR, feedrate OR, and spindle OR as hard buttons. I'm also thinking about doing a panel with 16 keys and a joystick so I'm looking for layout suggestions for a 16 and 32 key pad keeping in mind the buttons I already have plus the fact that the monitor is a touchscreen. The panel is easily replaceable so it's not set in stone, just want to get an initial printing that makes sense.

I wonder if you couldn't use a membrane keyboard with an adhesive printed overlay? might help get the cost down.