[sdiy] learning from early drum machines?

[David G. Dixon]

Adam,

Yes, I guess they are a bit pricey (the cheapest I found quickly was
$1.39/100 + $0.39/100 for caps, Mountain Switch TS55 series from Mouser).  A
less elegant solution is a plain tactile switch (very cheap) with an LED
mounted directly above.

Also, please correct me if I am misguided, but I thought that the whole
point of the latch was to provide effective debouncing.

Dave
 
-----Original Message-----
From: synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl
[mailto:synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl] On Behalf Of Adam Schabtach
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 10:58 AM
To: 'sdiy'
Subject: RE: [sdiy] learning from early drum machines?


> > What about using a pcb-mounted MO tactile switch and a flip-flop?   
> > With a
> > backlit LED in the switch, this would be very cool, very intuitive, 
> > and I think it would also be pretty cheap (depending on the switch).
> >
> > Dave
> 
> Yeah, that *would* be very cool. All depends on finding some cheap
> (ish) buttons with LEDs, I suppose. Flipflops aren't a lot.
> The circuit board to connect it all together might be a pain though.

The contact bounce of the switches could be really annoying. Basically you'd
have a 50/50 chance of the flip-flop ending up in the desired state when you
press the button.

Recently I bought a bunch of Omron illuminated tact switches which would fit
the bill. B3W-9 is the series number. Price in small quantities is around
US$2.50; whether or not that's "cheap (ish)" depends on your budget. :-)

Dan: the current popular way to get your feet wet with microcontrollers is
the Arduino system. See http://arduino.cc/ . The boards (there are several
models from several vendors) are inexpensive and the development software is
free. They're very popular with people who want to do interactive stuff with
computers but are new to microcontrollers (and programming in general).
There's lots of example code and discussion. I've never used one but were I
starting from scratch with microcontrollers today I'd get an Arduino board.

--Adam

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