The Infinitely Configurable Button Maker (ICBM).

An application story about the delivery of the worlds most flexible button system to leading switch maker Industrias Lorenzo, by one of UK’s leading display experts.

The Client
Industrias-Lorenzo is one of the most famous providers of switches and actuators for the amusement, gaming, industrial and professional markets. They approached GPEG with an unresolved problem.

Many users of their products find themselves having to replace or update manually the transparent labels used inside illuminated push-buttons. This is both costly, time-consuming and often impractical given the distributed nature of products in the field. What was required was a remotely programmable solution that would meet the demanding needs of such diverse markets, with long lifetime, tight mechanical integration and a simple yet flexible operating software.

The solution
GPEG engineers tabled a wide choice of potential solutions to the client to help them define the actual market need. This was a significant challenge as in every different market there were differing needs and cost targets to be met. In the end the best solution with lowest cost of ownership was selected. It was deemed necessary to support both a simple monochrome low cost device but also a highly flexible full colour unit capable of inter-changeability as market acceptance grew.

To achieve this target a powered distribution hub was designed that allows a single point of interface to either a USB or an RS232 serial port. From this hub a 4 wire button-bus can be implemented through an equipment rack or cabinet, resulting in simple and cost effective wiring.

Onto this ‘button-bus’ any number of and any type of button can be added. Each button identifies itself and its characteristics automatically to the host controller. This makes integration very straightforward and eases the process of design and development. Furthermore the system is offered with a designer’s toolkit which contains everything that is required to implement the buttons into a wide range of applications and environments.

The Product
The low profile OLED Push-Button (A010LED-LP) measures just 48.2 x 46.3 mm and fits into a standard 40.8 x 42.7mm punched panel hole. It contains a full colour 128x128xRGB pixel array with a window size of 1.5” diagonal. This can easily show 6 lines of text, a mixture of colourful text and graphics or even eye catching animations.

When combined with the control software, up to 31 images can be stored locally on the button and retrieved with a simple primitive command set or screens can be updated to the button ‘live’ at the rate of up to 20 screens per second. With over 260,000 colours available on the system, high definition true colour pictures can be displayed in vivid, bright, high visibility format.

An intelligent micro-switch is integrated in the assembly which can either be attached directly to the host controller as a digital output or can be read via the button-bus at any time.

More products are under development that will offer refresh speeds as fast as 65 frames per second opening up true video speed image transfer for an even greater user experience. The colour OLED button is already opening up designer’s eyes to new product possibilities – with infinite potential for the future!

http://www.industrias-lorenzo.com/

For further information please contact: rodney.tietjen@gpegint.com on 0870 493 1433

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