I'm working on a silly little project and I need it to operate off a single momentary push button. I'm working with a very simple circuit driving a microcontroller, a LED and a speaker to produce light and sound. It's basically a movie prop replica. Anyway, the issue I'm having is that the device in question would normally have no visible button, so I'm looking at options to make the activation button either invisible or discrete.
Ideas I've considered:
1) Wiring directly to the casing and using the user's body to complete the circuit. (It's only 6v DC)
... Is this feasible? It's by far my favourite option if it can be done safely but I don't know the practicalities - like how far removed from each other the upper and lower terminal need to be to ensure that the connection is solid, for example.
2) Hiding the button behind a button that lies flush with the casing
Another good option, but this would require the button to be quite short in height - the device is a cylinder approximately 12mm in diameter and, although I can easily produce custom fixings to keep the switch in place, I am unsure what component I can get that will fit in the space available with a firm enough fixing to attach the faux case segment that will hide it. A good comparison is to look at a 4LR44 battery - that's what I'm using to power it, so that's how much space there is internally.
3) Some other option.
I've looked into a few other options - capacitive touch controls are too expensive and may be too complex, for example - but if anyone can think of any other ideas I'd be grateful.
Does anyone have any tips on this?
Ideas I've considered:
1) Wiring directly to the casing and using the user's body to complete the circuit. (It's only 6v DC)
... Is this feasible? It's by far my favourite option if it can be done safely but I don't know the practicalities - like how far removed from each other the upper and lower terminal need to be to ensure that the connection is solid, for example.
2) Hiding the button behind a button that lies flush with the casing
Another good option, but this would require the button to be quite short in height - the device is a cylinder approximately 12mm in diameter and, although I can easily produce custom fixings to keep the switch in place, I am unsure what component I can get that will fit in the space available with a firm enough fixing to attach the faux case segment that will hide it. A good comparison is to look at a 4LR44 battery - that's what I'm using to power it, so that's how much space there is internally.
3) Some other option.
I've looked into a few other options - capacitive touch controls are too expensive and may be too complex, for example - but if anyone can think of any other ideas I'd be grateful.
Does anyone have any tips on this?
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