Tactile Switch Gauges

thingiverse

Updated with some accuracy info and files. These gauges were made as tool to aid the repair process of electronic equipment in a Repair Café setting. They are for in-situ measurement of the height of the 6x6mm tactile button switches found in the electronic controls for items such as cordless vacuum cleaners, DAB radios and coffee machines. The tactile button switches are available in a wide range of heights but are not always easy to measure in situ, even if you do have something like a set of vernier calipers at hand. They were designed initially for some of the popular sizes encountered at Repair Cafés such as 4.3, 5, 6 and 7mm, but others can easily be made and printed. Your printer will need to be well tuned and you should use a low shrinkage filament such as PLA or PETG. These were printed using standard Creality settings with PLA and came out surprisingly accurate. However, if you really need good accuracy then you really should use vernier calipers. In practice, fitting a 4.5mm switch in place of a 4.3mm one, or vice versa, is not a problem in a Repair Café setting especially if it saves some item from being scrapped. Accuracy The gauge end measurement gap is quite accurate because the printer nozzle movement relative to the bottom edge. However, the opening on the side needs to take into account the extrusion width. This can be done by some trickery in the slicer settings or in the CAD design itself. The best way is to go for the CAD option but filing the printed part is also quite easy to do anyway. I have uploaded a modified FreeCad file which adds 0.4mm, works for my setup, to the width of the side opening plus a set of modified STL files. I had overlooked the accuracy of the side measurement as my early prints I used slic3R which had a lot of historic tweaks for my older Prusa based printer. When I used the basic 'no frills' settings with the Creality slicer, which is based on Cura, the accuracy discrepancy became more apparent.