Homemade Guitar Hero / Frets on Fire controller how to

Part 2 - Buttons

The next thing necessary is a panel, that will hold all buttons in place. I used a scrap piece of red acrylic and started the drawing and cutting process:

Here is a shot of a pile of red trash, left from the cutting. Someone want a whiff?!

And now a test - unbelievable, but true, everything fits!!!

And now - time for a second panel. It will support the printboards of the buttons, the conduct surfaces for the LEDs and will support the buttons:

The buttons have to be fixed in some way to fit to the panel and work as intended. That is the reason I glued some more acrylic to the back side of them, this time black, 2mm:

The printboards are mounted to the back panel:

A test to see how the buttons match:

And here is the final product:

As you may have already noticed, there were till now only 4 button printboards, 1 short. I will get it from here:

After the abuse here is the fifth button:

And the back panel with mounted printcircuits:

Placing the contact rubbers for the buttons:

And here is the whole button block at this stage: