Procrastinating on building the phone because I'd like softer, more quiet buttons

Hi all,
As an owner of the Makerbuino I was always withheld to use it (especially among people or in public) because of the loudness of the buttons. Hence Iā€™m now hesitant to start building the Makerphone that lies here, un-built and o so quiet. ā€¦
So before starting a thorough search on my own Iā€™d thought to ask the question here first.
Thereā€™s an article on the forum here that mentions the same about the Makerbuino: Buttons too hard
Does anybody have suggestions on which alternatives I could use, or even just the right terms or numbers to use when searching.
Links and tips more than welcome. Iā€™ll use this thread to update any findings of myself.

'till then, all the best from Belgium,
Jon

The buttons used are something called ā€œtactile buttonsā€. You can switch to a ā€˜momentaryā€™ ā€œpush buttonā€. You can hear the quiet plastic rub against the aluminum housing if you really want to, but thereā€™s no internal mechanism to cause clicking or scratching.

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This is the most common variant push button. You can search for smaller ones.

Just a small update (when I have a more interesting follow-up Iā€™ll update the original post)
@8bitRobot thanks for your input.

I was more hoping to find an exact ā€˜copyā€™ of the regular buttons that came with the Ringo-kit. But then a less clicky sort.

Think the sort of feedback or feel of an e.g. Playstation 4 Dualshock controller. I went looking for the type of button used in the DS4 and found the answer on ifixit.com


So thatā€™s a whole different setup.
Iā€™ll continue my search :wink:
Skimming through all possible buttons on e.g. this site: mouser.be I canā€™t seem to find one that would fit the button caps.

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You could add the rubber to the button caps for padding.

If it needs glue, always use Loctite 414 for rubber/plastics. An alternative to 414 is generic Loctite Superglue.

@jonwtr, thanks for supporting our work! :slight_smile:
Iā€™m sorry that youā€™re dissatisfied with the clickiness.
Usually people like it because everything is non-clicky today.

Basically, what youā€™re looking is a switch with less operational force. That means that youā€™re looking for pushbuttons that are easier to press and thus less clicky.

there are some alternatives to the pushbuttons that weā€™re using and that should be footprint compatible:

Big buttons:
https://www.digikey.fr/product-detail/fr/omron-electronics-inc-emc-div/B3F-5050/SW801-ND/368377
https://lcsc.com/product-detail/Others_GANGYUAN-KAN1210-0731B_C231717.html
https://lcsc.com/product-detail/Tactile-Switches_Diptronics-DTS-24N-S-V_C225016.html

Small buttons:
https://lcsc.com/product-detail/Tactile-Switches_ALPS_SKHHCWA010_6x6x7-3Plastic-head-0-98N_C139761.html

Tbh Iā€™ve never benchmarked the clickiness of these buttons compared to the ones on the MAKERphone, I just know that they have a lower operational force rating in the datasheet

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I wouldnā€™t go as far as stating Iā€™m dissatisfied ā€¦ Itā€™s more of a ā€œspeak now or forever hold your peaceā€. As I think itā€™s not a good idea to try to disassemble it afterwards. Iā€™ll save that skill for later.

I humbly thank you @albertgajsak for taking the time to talk directly to your customers and elaborately replying. Iā€™m slow to move forward in this process but your reply encourages me to move forward :hugs: Iā€™m going to update this post when Iā€™ve made progress.
Bye for now. :face_with_monocle:

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@jonwtr, thank you for the kind words.

I really love talking to my customers and I find it really important for our future product developments. So any feedback you give me is much appreciated :slight_smile:

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Just as a bit more feedback, Iā€™m also not a huge fan of the very clicky buttons. Iā€™m probably not going to desolder the buttons to fix it in my case, but I am curious, @jonwtr, did you ever go through with getting the suggested alternative buttons? If so, did they work well?

@patrick Iā€™ve got the buttons, I ordered the ones mentioned by Albert, theyā€™re less noisy. (Got me thinking though; as theyā€™re also less resistant, could this result in more accidental pushes?)

Anyway, I havenā€™t forgotten about this, Iā€™m just still in the process of procrastinating :wink:
I did record some video to compare. One day Iā€™ll edit them and post here ā€¦

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