Hello! I would like in this video to talk about push buttons and breadboards.
Relatively straightforward topic, but the goal for me here is not really to explain how push buttons
work but rather to address the status quo - the way we use these buttons every day with breadboards.
I did a basic search on YouTube on buttons and breadboards and looked through the
videos available there and most tutorials out there use buttons one way. Essentially
the way these buttons are connected the're place in the middle of the breadboard
like this, and then the rest is connected to this. So if you were to build a very simple circuit -
just a battery, LED, button and a resistor, let's have a look how this typical approach looks like.
I have a power source here. All it does it provides power to those two rails
3.3 volts and GND and we will use this button to close the circuit to light up the LED.
We need an LED and a current limiting resistor, that's about it. Once you hook up the power
and press the button the LED lights up. Nothing really to this.
The issue I wish to address here is the placement of the button.
In most cases that's how people use them - in the middle of the breadboard
I suppose it works in many cases but it's not necessarily optimal.
This little button here takes up a lot of real estate on the breadboard.
All my components on this side but then the button also here is connected to a couple rows here.
That makes them unusable.
What I would like to propose is to move the button down a little bit
so it's not going across the middle of the breadboard. It will work the same way,
so if you hook it up like this it still works, it still lights up (the LED).
But the gain I get is at least I don't take up the rows here - that frees up this
portion of the breadboard
At the end of the day the space on the breadboard is limited.
By moving it this way I don't waste that space here.
However I still don't like this in terms of general placement
It's not practical to have a button in the middle of the breadboard!
if i wish to press the button i kind of have to go with my finger and fight my way through this,
through the other components, especially if they're tall if this, it is all surrounded.
It doesn't make sense for me to put the button in the middle whether it's straight in the middle
or closer to the edge.
Ideally the button or any buttons should be at the edge of the breadboard and I don't see
many tutorials that actually do that, so i'd like to show you a way to get that accomplished.
This is particularly useful with the larger variety of these buttons, something like this because these
cannot be really moved the way the small button is now placed, they don't fit. Let me show you!
If we look at those legs they're just too wide they don't really fit anymore.
What I want to do is I actually want to place the button like this
but this will not work without modification. The way the button is designed,
these pins here are connected in pairs so essentially this pin and this pin, they're joined
together right now the way this pin and this pin is joined together right now so if I press
the button they all get bridged.if I connected it like this (let's see to the ground on this side)
What this does, this is this is all connected right now, all together.
The button wouldn't have an effect.
For that to work you need to remove one of the pins. I just bend them back and
forth to make it a three-legged button. You really need two (legs) - we always use them on diagonal.
I leave the third one for stability, just so it sticks better to the breadboard
The key is, the single one here will go either to the GND or to the power rail
here like this.
There's only one pin on this side and you can connect it either to the GND (the blue rail)
or to the red (3.3V in this case ). It doesn't matter - you can move it up or down.
The other side here would be on the diagonal from this pin right here.
It I can take the LED now connect it like this, add the resistor this works just fine.
What I like about this method is that the button is at the edge of the breadboard
right here and you can have multiple buttons here lined up all together sort of like a keyboard
and if you want to access them you press them from this (side) and you never touch any of
the other components in the middle.
To me it makes a lot more sense and the only change required here is to remove one of these pins.
I hope you like this hack and this will help you clean up your breadboards a little bit.
That's what i use in my projects. Thanks for watching!