Re: Dual-pressure push switch like camera shutter?

On Mon, 2 Jun 2008, Phil wrote:

Dear All,

Has anyone ever seen an off-the-shelf pushbutton that has two contacts, one that's made on gentle pressure and a second that's made when you press all the way down? Like the shutter button on most cameras.

I'm actually making a remote shutter release for my camera. I was going to connect up just the main "take picture" contact, since I don't need the autofocus in this case and it seems to work. But then I discovered that another purpose of the first contact is to wake the camera up if it has gone to sleep. Having a separate switch is not ideal since in this case.

Any ideas anyone?


Phil.

I can't think of anything else that would make use of such a switch,
so I suspect they aren't available off the shelf.

Find a scrap camera and take the switch out of that. For that matter,
if you can look at the switch you might discover it's a mechanical arrangement that could be duplicated.

Have a real mechanical switch for the "take picture" switch, and then
a metal plate that when touched activates the other?

Have two microswitches, one above the other, and a shaft that when pressed, activates the first microswitch, and if you press the
shaft further the second swithc is activated.

I think that's where you'll have to go, and then various variations
on that theme come to mind, like using slotted optocouplers instead
fo microswitches.

Michael

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