Hi, I have a question about making the switch tips flat and conductive, connected to a wire. It is for my electronic go board project.
Right now the go board requires drilling holes from the surface of the board all the way to the bottom. The holes are used to run wires that connect two pieces of metal per switch to the 19 by 19 grid.
The way the go board determines when the pieces are placed on the board is by detecting that the switches become closed. As a result, the go stones are conductive and the switch tips are exposed on the surface of the board. The switch wires run through the hole and connect to the 19 by 19 keypad matrix circuitry. Ideally, the exposed part of the switches should be flat as well so the entire board surface feel smooth.
The problem I'm facing now is that I am not sure how to make the exposed switch tip properly connected to the 19 by 19 circuitry. The keypad matrix circuit can be printed onto a pcb and have service providers like pcbway to manufacture it. However, the switch wires cannot be put on that circuit because the wires have to be able to fit through the holes in the board and the exposed part of the switch tip has to be bigger than the hole so it doesn't fall back down.
(I hope it makes sense...)
The setup should look similar to the image on the left:
I am thinking that I can somehow solder a wire to a small piece of aluminium foil and use that as the exposed switch tip. The wires can then run through the holes and be soldered onto the board. This is probably good enough for prototype but I don't know how to make it more ...... product ready looking.
Can someone give me some insights as to how this can or should be done?? Thanks!!
Yeah I just found out that copper plate is a thing on Amazon and it's not too expensive. It seems that this design works if I can just replace the aluminum foil with copper plate.
Yeah it will be a lot to maintain for sure. I didn't know such thing exist. I found this site 3 colaboratory organization. Looks pretty cool. Thanks for the suggestion!!!
If these switches are just touch sensors, that is not going to work with a matrix. Nor is it going to register a piece on the position once the hand is taken away.
You need some sort of optical reflective sensor, at which point 19 by 19 is going to get very expensive.
Magnet reed switches look pretty interesting. It has the effect I want and the pieces won't directly touch the circuitry. They look kind of big on sellers website though. Are the smaller ones more expensive?
A few community members helped me modify the Arduino library and sketch codes to make it work. I am not tracking locations of all of the stones when a new piece is placed on the board. Rather, when new pieces are played, only the location of that piece will be sent to the serial port. This works when there are other existing stones on the board as well. I also considered using light to detect placing stones but like you said, the cost would skyrocket.
Another way would to fit a camera to the underside and then you can see if a hole is blocked or not. It might make it a bit thick depending on the angle the lens covered.
Yes I saw those previous posts. However as you did not tell them what you were specifically going to do they suggested things that would not work.
Make your entire board of thick FR4 double sided circuit board material. All your wires and switch connections can be copper traces on the board. Vias can allow switch connections and the connection made using any conductive material, including conductive foam. Just like the push buttons were made 30 years ago.
