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Wanted: Micro on / off switch

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upnick

Oct 26, 2012
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Hi All,

I'm working on a project for lighting small items & am looking for a micro flat on/off switch like the ones in the thumbnail or smaller, overall they are 12mm square.
 

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Harald Kapp

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Are the dimensions mm or inches?
These are normally only momentary switches (pushbuttons) without an on/off locking action.
Here is a selection. Try the catalog of your preferred dealer to find what's actually available.
 

upnick

Oct 26, 2012
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Are the dimensions mm or inches?
These are normally only momentary switches (pushbuttons) without an on/off locking action.
Here is a selection. Try the catalog of your preferred dealer to find what's actually available.

Hi Harald,

Many thanks for your reply when it comes to electrics i'm hopeless to be honest i'm a plug & play type if possible.

The project i'm working on is lighting model railway coaches with batteries or if this isnt feasible collecting current from the track (if i go collecting power from the track i'd like to know about stay alive devices) with the battery option having an on /off locking action is what i'm lookimg for i have some of the ones in the picture they are momentary all measurements are mm
 
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Harald Kapp

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You'll be better off looking for miniature slide switches. Unless you want to venture into building some (not too complicated) electronic circuits.

For a "plug & play type" I recommend using commercially available railway lighting sets. Or, if you want to start learning a bit about electronics, go for a do-ikt-yourself kit.
 

CocaCola

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For model railroad applications at the hobbyist level where it's only going to be used a few hours a day or what not I would just go with button cells, you can get them cheap in bulk on Ebay... Run a bank of them and you can get enough power to run a decent amount of LEDs for a decent length of time...

Personally I would skip the on/off switch and just go with installing/uninstalling the LEDs if I went this way...

In the end it's really about what your end goal is, as Harald said there are commercially available options that will really simplify things... But, if you got into electronics you could do more...
 

upnick

Oct 26, 2012
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I'd think the subminiature sliding switches are a better option, i am aware of the DCC concepts kits out there Harald but having over 30 coaches to fit out intitially the cost is prohibitive.

I have PCB boards like those from DCC concepts & if i could find a way of making a stay alive / super capacitor think it is ? as they have in the flickfree kit could eliminate the need for batteries.
 

Harald Kapp

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I think what you're looking for is something like a bike's LED rear light.
I found an article here, but you may want to look for a cheaper solution possibly using only a resistor for current limiting and a zener diode parallel to the supercap for overvoltage protection. And of course a current limiting resistor for the LED. Use a warm-white LED for a nice appearance. A blue-white LED would look unnatural if not ghostly.
 
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