[PLUG-TALK] Microswitches at Surplus Gizmos (was: toasters)

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Tue Oct 25 19:39:28 UTC 2011


On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 12:02:39AM -0700, Russell Senior wrote:
> A few minutes ago, I got home, found the failed bit and discovered my
> dorkbot score was a drop-in replacement with exactly the same form
> factor as the busted switch.  Even down to the same graphic and pin
> labeling embossed into the plastic housing.  What a freaking miracle!

Besides the dorkbot free box, there are about a dozen different
styles of old microswitches at Surplus Gizmos on Cornelius Pass 
Road north of 26.  Useful for various projects, such as LED lights
inside otherwise-poorly-lit kitchen cabinets.  Buy spares.

Hardware stuff is built out of mass produced standard components,
which means the same components turn up in many different kinds
of gear.  The same Motorola piezo devices show up in pacemakers
and in land mines.  If you are a soldier needing to fix a balky
land mine, find some old guy with a heart problem and ... :-/

These days, with most manufacturing happening globally, some
components are difficult to find here.  The same chinese switch
manufacturer may sell his microswitches to device makers in
markets in a dozen different countries.   Perhaps only one
product makes it to the US, making the switch hard to find.

On the other hand, you can use Google Image Search to find those
components, as repair parts for something entirely different.  
I needed a particular kind of spring-loaded carbon brush to fix
the motor in my wintertime exercise treadmill.   By searching
for the image, I found the same brushes in the motors of an
obscure line of 1970's washing machines in the UK.  I used paypal
to order the brushes from the backroom stock of an appliance
repair shop in London, and they were sent by International
Royal Mail.

More recently, I repaired the backlight fuse on a laptop by
removing a somewhat larger surface mount fuse from an about-to-
be-recycled motherboard at Free Geek.

Standardized, characterized, interchangable parts.  What a
nifty idea.  Perhaps they should try it with software.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs



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