We previously designed a replacement button for a Replicator 2/2X LCD Interface Panel. You can check out the Thingiverse post here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:784845
The issue was that it was designed to make use the heads of copper coated nails, this meant that in the long run there was a risk of damaging the board and wearing out the contacts on the board itself. These hard contacts also meant it was sometimes difficult to press the buttons as they had to line up very precisely.
We found a product to allowed us to design another version of the replacement. It is a very simple to apply graphite liquid that will adhere to a rubber material. This made it a good fit for NinjaFlex.
We printed a new version of the original button that made use of a circular bump rather than a recess to put the nail in.
We followed the directions on this keypad repair kit and then let the product sit for 24 hours to cure.
Once this button’s graphite was cured, we installed it and it worked well. The button isn’t quite as responsive as the stock MakerBot one but it is definitely highly usable especially compared to the previous version. We will do an update once we have done long-term testing on this button and see how well the contacts wear.
