Identify this part for me

[lostatlantis]

I took apart the RM-2 remote that came with the Olympus stylus 300 camera to figure out how it works. Here's the picture. The soft plastic button makes contact with the circuit component seen in the middle of the tiny PCB. It's the square part to the left of the control chip (which is located in the lower right hand corner), and it has a wavy design on it. It's inside the red circle.

What is it? how does it work?

I want to rig up a bigger push button to the remote, I was wondering what's the best way to do it. Right now, I am thinking about making the button make permanent contact with the part (always on in essence), and put the new button in between the 3V battery and the rest of the circuit. What do you think?

 

[cirthix]

if you look onthe bottom of the button, there is a thin conductive coating. you should be able to solder a normal button on there, hotgluing a face to it

 

[PottedMeat]

or you could solder wires to the two circles of solder in the bottom right corner of the circuit board directly to a pushbutton switch

 

[TuxDave]

It looks like an open circuit. When you push down the button, it shorts the two sides (the two darker colored areas separated by the bronze colored swirly thing) which triggers the controller.... or something. I'm not sure how well your idea may work. You can test out the idea by holding down the current button and connecting/disconnecting the battery to see if it works the way you want it to BEFORE you start soldering anything.

 

[kedvale]

Originally posted by: lostatlantis
I took apart the RM-2 remote that came with the Olympus stylus 300 camera to figure out how it works. Here's the picture. The soft plastic button makes contact with the circuit component seen in the middle of the tiny PCB. It's the square part to the left of the control chip (which is located in the lower right hand corner), and it has a wavy design on it. It's inside the red circle.

What is it? how does it work?

I want to rig up a bigger push button to the remote, I was wondering what's the best way to do it. Right now, I am thinking about making the button make permanent contact with the part (always on in essence), and put the new button in between the 3V battery and the rest of the circuit. What do you think?

As others have mentioned, it's simply a normally open circuit (the dark sides on the left and right of the snaky orange part are conducting, and the snaky part is non-conducting), that becomes closed when the button is pressed (the bottom side of the button will have a conductive material).

Regarding your idea for the new button, the results might not be ideal, as there is probably debouncing circuitry on the current button. Unless you want to add a debounce circuit, it is probably easist to use the existing button pad location on the pcb to add your new button. Good luck!

 

[shabby]

Its a carbon pad, its an open circuit until the button closes it.