Debounced Breadboard Switches
Debounced Breadboard Switches
This is a cool little project. I often prototype circuits on solderless breadboards. I've mostly switched to using 0805 SMD resistors and capacitors. I have a box of 1/4W 1% and a box of 1/2W 1% THT resistors but they aren't neat when they're plugged into the breadboard. I've got 0.1uF capacitors but no 1.0uF in THT.
I decided to make up these little tact switches ready to plug into the breadboard with built in hardware debounce. The debounce circuit also provides a pull-up resistor.
Each switch has a 10K 0805 resistor between Vcc and the MCU pin, a 1.0uF 0805 capacitor between GND and the MCU pin, and a 1K resistor between the switch and the MCU pin. The end result is a nicely debounced going low switch with a built in pull-up. They work great and I can just grab one when I need one and plug it in. I've made versions that will plug into one side or the other of the breadboard so that I can have a switch on either side depending on what works best.
The row with 3 pins is GND and the adjacent row with 1 pin is Vcc. The single pin at the other end is the debounced switched output to the MCU pin.
If anyone's interested I can post pictures of the process of making these and how I wire them up so that the work correctly.