Posted by MannyTC on September 25, 1999 at 13:34:05:
In Reply to: why vertical pushbuttons are crappy (long and pointless) posted by matt(v) on September 25, 1999 at 07:53:58:
: There seems to be a pretty major design flaw in all the vertical microwsitch designs that I have seen
: A pushbutton is made of two peices of plastic, Barrel and plunger (these are just my descriptions of the parts, don't go asking an arcade opperator for a replacement plunger, you'll look like a fool) Anyway the barrel clips inside the plunger and has two plastic prongs sticking out the bottom. One of these prongs is in contact with the actuator on the microswitch . When you push the pushbutton the barrel moves down and closes the switch, here is where the difference between the two switch orientations comes in.
: For a horizontal microswitch the prong off the bottom of the plunger pushes straight down on top of it, I guess if you hit the button with a hammer you could cause some damage to the microswitch below but for the most part this arrangement seems to work well.
: In the case of a vertical microswitch the prong on the bottom of the plunger is cut off at an angle (narrow at the bottom and wide at the top), when the top of the plunger is pressed the prong slides past the microswitch and activates it that way. This is susposed to be a good thing as no matter how hard you press the button you cannot
: dammage the microswitch however what usualy happens is
: 1) The prong on the bottom of the plunger slowly wears away and pushes outward, the button becomes less responsive (you really have to hit it to get a response)
: 2) The pushbutton was so badly made in the first place that there is room for the plunger to move side to side in the barrel rather than just up and down, if you don't hit the button dead centre the prong goes right past the actuator without closing the switch.
: This is hard to explain without a picture.
: So the answer you already had (that horizontal buttons are better) is one that I agree with but I was bored and I'm sure SOMEONE wanted to know about this. Whats that? no-one wanted to know? Too late, its in your brain now and you're stuck with it forever :-)