Searching for a particular square, illuminated push-button

[adrifromhh]

Hello,

I'm looking for a particular pushbutton manufacturer or a high quality replacement. I'm sitting in front of an intercom device which has exactly the type of button I prefer, but I'm probably not allowed to open it. (See attachments) There is a small one with a completely flat surface and a big one which is pretty flat but has a very shallow, round depression in the middle. The surface is transparent, but slightly dull. I don't know if they are PCB-Mounted and if the cap and button are separate parts or one assembly.

The small one is about 11 x 11 mm.
The big one is about 17 x 17 mm.
They both feel pretty much the same. A very uniform travel of about 4-5 mm without a tactile click.

The requirements are:

• No bezel, so the button protrudes through a frontplate, but not attached to it
• Illuminated
• Square and flat front
• Large flat "view" area and possibility to insert a text film strip
• No tactile click
• High quality, high cycle counts
• Momentary
• No special, or high amp / voltage ratings (digitally captured)

I have gone through the following manufacturers. None of them seem to be exactly the same, but some come pretty close.
E-Switch / EAO / Siemens APT / Panasonic / CIT JC / Omron

• Pretty close, but slightly smaller dimensions and actuators don't look like film-insert compatible
• E-Switch LP6
• E-Switch LP11
• E-Switch LP16
• E-Switch ULP

What I'm not very familiar with yet is the combination of PCB-mount buttons + a separate cap as an assembly. I haven't yet looked into the separately svailable caps there.

Help, or suggestions for more manufacturers is very much appreciated!

[floobydust]

NKK Switches might be a contender, but high quality and high price.

Also getting more popular are clone (Cherry MX) keyboard switches, clear keycaps like Relegendable Plastic Keycaps for MX Compatible Switches then you can choose the switch but LED backlighting is a bit dim looking.

[shabaz]

Just to add to the list of possibilities you might want to try out; Marquardt 6425 series might also be suitable.  They are described as 'pleasant actuating characteristic and low actuation noise" : ) and they really do feel great in use. It is a very gentle light click. They do not feel like a typical tact switch when pressing. They feel like keyboard buttons.

The series includes LED models. For the keycaps, I've only used plain ones, but there does appear to be a version that accepts a label, and it works with the LED models of the switch too. The keycaps are of dimension 15.5 mm, for a pitch of 16 mm. Unfortunately, Marquardt don't offer a similar-but-smaller square version as far as I can tell, but I may have missed it.

[EPAIII]

What you are asking for are just PCB mounted switches with a square lens that protrudes through a panel. Many manufacturers make them. And many of the styles/series of such switches will have multiple lens (push buttons) options so you can find the style you want. This style is very common: I have used many, many items of commercial equipment with similar construction, using similar switches on their front panels.

Generally speaking, there are two ways of adding a legend: engraving it on the outside of the lens/button and filling with paint or with a transparent insert (which can be made with an ink jet or laser printer as well as commercial printing) that fits behind a clear window in the lens/button.

I drilled down this search at Mouser as far as I could with the information you provided.

https://www.mouser.com/c/electromechanical/switches/pushbutton-switches/?actuator=Square&illuminated=Illuminated&mounting%20style=PCB%20Mount%7C~PCB%20Mount%2C%20Snap-In

You can do similar searches at other electronic supply sites on the internet.

[adrifromhh]

Thanks all of you guys a lot! Those are very good tips...

I think I will find the right switch in those suggestions. NKK and E-Switch look very promising.

Plus, I might even be able to take a look inside the devices that I posted the fotos of. I will come back to this thread If I find out which manufacturer it is exactly. But I don't think it needs to be the exact one after finding so many high quality replacements.

[adrifromhh]

NKK Switches might be a contender, but high quality and high price.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! As Dave would say.. 

Just to add to the list of possibilities you might want to try out; Marquardt 6425 series might also be suitable.

Second price! 

I was actually just narrowing it down to NKK KP-Series switches, and then just typed "DHD audio NKK" into google and found out that DHD, the manufacturer of these broadcast devices is very transparent on their website: They offer both the Marquardt and the NKK-KP switches as replacement parts.

Here is the very nice selection of switches by NKK, that I narrowed it down to:

• HB2 Series
• KP Series
• UB2 Series
• NP01 Series

[floobydust]

Really nice, they're beautiful switches. Broadcast/recording studio heavy use.
You can also laserprint your legends on transparency and put that under a keycap, it looks very good.

[shabaz]

Very useful thread! I'm always on the lookout for decent push-buttons too. Looking forward to trying out the NKK switches at some point.

[adrifromhh]

By the way, almost all E-Switch Buttons of this type are nowhere in stock at the moment, besides from the ULP series..