Enclosure for 6mm tactile button switch

cults3d

Turn a 6mm tactile button (the tiny 6x6x5mm ones that come with pretty much every electronics kit) into a much lager, human-friendly button with room for routing wires inside the base. The base measures 21mm square by 10.6mm tall.The button top measures 18mm square by 7.7mm tall. Total assembled height will be around 19-20 mm (some variance in how tightly everything fits together). Assembly is completely friction-fit with no need for glue or fasteners, but pieces may need light sanding depending on your printer calibration. The sketchup files are included so you can easily incorporate this into other designs or add holes for external in a places that make sense for your use case. Or just print as-is and drill a hole where you need one. Assembly Instructions: 1. Attach the guide to flat side of the base using the three pegs and holes. The pegs may need to be sanded down slightly to fit. You will likely need to use a bit of superglue to keep these attached. 2. Place the button in the center of the base so the legs are straddling the bridge on the underside. The top of the button base should extend past the top of the printed base very slightly. Manufacturer designs have slight variations so you may need to modify the thickness of the bridge slightly to get your particular pushbutton to fit nicely. 3. Slide the base into the groves in the top of the box. 4. Slide the stem into the guide so that the notched end is on the same side as the guide opening. Ideally the top of the pushbutton should barely hold the stem in place, but more wiggle room should be ok. If the stem depresses the button while inserted try sanding down the thickness of the bridge (or modifying in the STL). 5. Orient the cap over the assembled base so the side at bottom of the U (with the protruding tab) is on the same side as the notch in the stem. Press firmly into place. To make the assembly permanent you can add a dab of superglue to the top of the stem before adding the cap. 6. Press the endcap into the open side of the box. The triangles go in the bottom. I've also included a "3x" STL for the base and box (with associated sketchup file) as an example of turning this into a self-contained 3x1 array of buttons. Note that you need a minimum of 1.2mm between each base to have enough room to insert/remove the stems. This also prevents the caps from bumping into each other when pressed. Special thanks to the creator of this dummy pushbutton model that I used in the design process (and included in the sketchup files for this thing): https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2244231