I don't know whether I mentioned earlier, but besides just asthetically looking like a NES controller, I also wanted the buttons on it to work (and when not being played a large piece of glass sits on top of it so it can be used like a regular coffee table; to place stuff on).
They key to making the buttons for this was sturdiness. I've got some pretty retarded friend who are probably ready to go to town on this thing, so it needs to be able to stand up to a good beating as well as remaining easily playable.Above is my fantastic 5 second sketch of how the buttons might be constructed.
After cutting the buttons roughly, and cutting a backing plate for them, I drilled 3 holes through the plate and half way into the buttons, I then got 3 quarter inch bolts per button, cut the heads off them and hammered them into the button.
I also bought a few small springs to go over the bolts like so.
Next up was to drill the holes in the backing plate a bit larger so there is minimal friction between the bolts and the plate while still guiding the button properly.
The button is positioned through the backing plat and nuts are put on the bolts to stop the button from coming out.
And there you have it, one sturdy, working NES button.After if figured out the proper mounting, I will probably use just some big strips of copper as the contact points for the button. Otherwise, maybe buy some push buttons from dick smith and mount them in there.
In the next post; how I constructed the D-pad (that was a whole lot harder to do because it has to rock in all directions).
