Chase Wichert asked me to post this here too. As mentioned here and there (@KS) before, I had the chance to collect some experience with the Rumba controller. It is a pretty reliable piece of hardware (except the USB socket on my old controller) and certainly a good choice. Nevertheless, as we have read here already a few times, there occur situations where you want to hit some sort of an emergency halt button. On my OrdBot-controller, the same LCD board is used like the one that comes with the BB. You have a choice of which housing you build there after assembling everything in more spaghetti-plate like manner. The boxes for the LCD display (you find them on Thingaverse) all have one very valuable feature - an integrated button to operate the reset switch that lives on the LCD board next to the rotary dial (incremental encoder). I am not sure how often I pressed that button in the past two years during prototyping new firmwares, new steprates, new PID configurations or just when something went not exactly als wanted. Definitely superior to a mains switch power cycle (remember you switch off the hotend's heatsink fan too then, allowing the heat from the hotend to climb up... ) in any case. So, what is the reason that the BB controller does not have a button there? - Or does it? I never read here, ' I hit the reset switch'. And I dont see one in the LCD cover. Cheers, U.
I'm not sure why it isn't there, a lot of people are also wondering why there isn't a hole for the contrast dial... I think one could be made and a hole drilled out potentially..
And if that fails, you have all means at hand to print your own fancy cover. BTW, a view of the LEDs on the rumba board would also be nice, there is more to them than just some blinking. OK, jigsaws exist. And tool #1.
Ohh, maybe some polycarbonate filament as a light guide, you could position some PC right above the LED's then have them pressed into small holes on the outside base of the BB?
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1RALjGoJGOtUFZDaXFTSVdBTHM&usp=sharing For some reason the forums aren't letting me share an imgur album, or photos. So I hope this works.
Good idea Chase. However you may want to revaluate that 3d printed button. Housing the switch like that may lead to wear on the solder.
Because you're housing all 4 sides of the switch which is held by solder. And since you'll be pressing the button at an slight angle due to the panel of the acrylic, you may put stress on the sides of the switch.
So basically you should make a housing that sits on the pcb, and a plunger type thing that moves up and down inside the housing so the plunger only comes into contact with the button and nothing else?
Not necessarily a housing freely sitting on top of the pcb (not sure what you mean actually) but you're correct, you want an extension that only comes in contact of the button on the switch. TBH what you have is probably fine as a quick hack method and not likely to fail as it may be seldomly pressed anyways.
Right, I was meaning basically just something to keep the button moving up and down and not side to side, but yeah I understand. Good to know for the future!
Gotcha. That "housing" to keep external buttons in place are usually attached to outer shells of products. But in the case of the bigbox i can see why you were thinking of somehow having that button housing along the pcb to avoid more modifications of the acrylic. May require a bit more thinking for a clever solution to avoid more drilling of the acrylic panel. Thus your method is the quick and easy out for now.