Thread: Illuminated Button

wait so can you get those savage led switches in On/Off or just in momentary?

Well got some good ideas for a Push Button, just got to track down the right supplier....

Now here is a challenge.... a 4 or 5 position Fan control switch.... thats looks cool too.....

I relocated the AC controls for Carputer 1.0 (18 months ago), but I didn't have room for fan switch, so I kept it below the old 5.6" screen... now I don't have that much room (a 20 year old GM switch is not very small by todays standards, nor is it cool looking)....

Any ideas on this one????

But thanks for the great links so far...

Originally Posted by Banderon

Wait! Scratch that! I got an idea. My goal is to make buttons similar to those found in a BMW. They're pretty black rectangles with the picture of them of what they do, and when you press them an LED on them lights up.

I was just thinking... some of those illuminated pushbuttons you linked have more than one LED. I'm thinking I can print out a stencil of the graphic I want, and paint over the button with black paint. That way, the button looks like black plastic, except for the image on it that will shine through. And when I press the button, I can wire it to switch which LED is lit. So for example, normaly they can be white, but when pressed they turn red.

You people think that'd work? Or would the LEDs shine through the paint?

why not look in junk yards for the bmw buttons or even ebay for them i remember that i found some old buttons like that at my old carstereo job ( way back in the day) i used aceatone the pull off the black and it left the button white ( if i remember ) and then painted them transluceient blue and it turned ot ok as i was just messing around

hth chad

Originally Posted by dug1967

Well got some good ideas for a Push Button, just got to track down the right supplier....

Now here is a challenge.... a 4 or 5 position Fan control switch.... thats looks cool too.....

I relocated the AC controls for Carputer 1.0 (18 months ago), but I didn't have room for fan switch, so I kept it below the old 5.6" screen... now I don't have that much room (a 20 year old GM switch is not very small by todays standards, nor is it cool looking)....

Any ideas on this one????

But thanks for the great links so far...

Check out some computer modding sites. Baybus (drive-bay mounted fan speed) controllers are very popular. A lot of people liek to make their own.

Originally Posted by tracker92

why not look in junk yards for the bmw buttons or even ebay for them i remember that i found some old buttons like that at my old carstereo job ( way back in the day) i used aceatone the pull off the black and it left the button white ( if i remember ) and then painted them transluceient blue and it turned ot ok as i was just messing around

hth chad

That is a very good idea. I wonder how their buttons are wired... I guess I'll find out.

Originally Posted by Magnezium

If you want to go really fancy and you're willing to put the money into it, you can get a small Quartz touch screen with a PLC. I'm using 2 for my door to repalce the window controls and locks. It's going to look really good. I've got them on order already, and when they arive I'll post pics of them. Someone from Nais Tsc is supposed to be coming to my house to show me how to program them!!! They're backlit with either green, blue, or red. They're slightly bulky, (at almost 1.5 inches deep) but they'd look good with some custom panneling.
By the way, you can put lables and/or icons on it... The visual programming interface looks like VB.
Mg

Hmm.. I just thought of something... it would be a bit of work, but would look pretty fly.
Have a set of three or four of them all in a row and with some programming and work, you could use them as a menu-driven system. Change what the buttons do/show on the fly. Press button one once and the other buttons control your HVAC system, press it again, and they change to power window/lock control, press again and they control car lighting etc.. The possibilities are endless.

You could replace every button in your car with a few of these.

Again, it would be a lot of work, but might be worth it to reduce clutter and add to the 'wow' factor.

Also, if people want (expensive) cool pushbutton starts, Ignited was one of the first sellers of high quality start buttons.

Regards,

Kris

Originally Posted by Superduck

Hmm.. I just thought of something... it would be a bit of work, but would look pretty fly.
Have a set of three or four of them all in a row and with some programming and work, you could use them as a menu-driven system. Change what the buttons do/show on the fly. Press button one once and the other buttons control your HVAC system, press it again, and they change to power window/lock control, press again and they control car lighting etc.. The possibilities are endless.

You could replace every button in your car with a few of these.

Again, it would be a lot of work, but might be worth it to reduce clutter and add to the 'wow' factor.

Also, if people want (expensive) cool pushbutton starts, Ignited was one of the first sellers of high quality start buttons.

Regards,

Kris

It wouldn't be a lot of work, actually. You could do all that with microcontrollers.

But for things like AC, it's not too good. I mean, it'd make getting to any car option harder. If you have a button for something, it's faster to hit it than to go through a menu.

But, for some aspects, that would be really useful. Specifically, control of the PC. For example: Click shut down, and the next screen gives you options of how long to wait before shutting down.

Good idea man. I actually want to implement this somehow now. Next question... where to actually get TS mini-LCDs?

These are a bit bigger, but you could create several 'buttons' on one screen.
I'm still googling to try and find a smaller button-sized screen...
Anyone else have better luck?


Kris

What would be really cool.. If you replaced you door panel switches with a PDA (with touchscreen) to control thinks like Windows, Lights, etc etc.. Have it running CE and write a nice interface for it..