I have always found it rather annoying that when using 10mm tactile pushbuttons with a breadboard, you have to place them across the ravine. They take up a large amount of space if you’re trying to build a large circuit, especially if you use the Adafruit Pi cobbler breakout with Raspberry Pi electronics.
How could I make a condensed pushbutton to fit many on one full-sized breadboard? I tried bending the legs of regular 10mm and 6mm pushbuttons, but it didn’t work because the legs were too short. So I would have to make my own with longer legs. Here are my proposed ideas for new and improved pushbuttons for more space-effective breadboarding. The normally connected legs are indicated with the green lines.
Pushbutton review: a normally open (NO) tactile pushbutton has four legs on it. The two legs on one side are connected, as with the other side, but both sides are not connected. When you press the button, however, all four legs are connected together. Basically, when you press it, it closes the circuit and makes it work. Normally closed (NC) tactile pushbuttons work the opposite. When you press them, the two sides become disconnected.
Electrothoughts 