Pedal Fighter button layout

It’s about time for some updates on the Pedal Fighter project. The buttons are pretty awesome and I’ve finally gotten the correct drill bits for making a prototype.

I took a closer look at the buttons once I had them in my hands. It turns out that they use a pretty standard key switch inside, much like an older (non-membrane) keyboard. The switches are very light and don’t have any kind of clicking action.

My initial drill pattern put the rows of buttons 10cm apart, but this seemed too cramped underfoot.

I’ve gone through several iterations of the drill pattern. Check out all the paper templates:

I ended up using a 15cm row spacing and a 8cm horizontal spacing. Note that the Behringer FCB1010 foot pedal that I have uses a 7cm horizontal spacing. I think a little more generous spacing is good with these sensitive buttons. Any accidental touch will trigger these things. The larger row spacing is to allow heel-toe actuation of the buttons. I’m not sure yet how well this will work out. If it doesn’t seem to help with playing I’m probably going to go back to a narrower spacing and possibly put the second row up on a riser.

I used LibreCAD to create the drawings. The file format is standard .dxf so I’m hoping to use this same file for routing the final polycarbonate faceplate. For now I’m printing out the templates and just using them as drill guides for my spade drill bits.

I took the last template and created a new prototype.