Questions about momentary switches

[bgonc1482]

Hi guys, I posted a few days ago in the General Hilt Building section about a LS design I was going for. To give you the brief overview, it is a tonfa style saber. Anyway, I found an old joystick that I want to use for the handle, and the guys over in my other thread said that it uses a momentary switch.

My question is this: do I need to convert it to a latching switch? And also, do I need to use the driver with the saber, or can I just use the basic LED stuff and convert later? And last but not least, if I don't need to convert to latching, should I keep the old wiring, or just rewire it later?

P.S. I created this thread so that the other one could stay more on topic.

[supertrogdor]

Hi bgonc, a momentary switch will only stay on when you press it. So if you wanted it to control your LED's on/off status, you would have to hold it in the on position with a finger for the entire time you wanted the LED to be in the on position. Converting it to a Latching swith is probably your best choice if it controls that facet of your saber. Some people use momentary switches with sound options, like the flash on clash effect you can get from some of the soundboards that are available, but i kind of doubt that you would be able to tuck that all too safely inside a joystick and still have room for batteries. Then again i shouldn't spout off too much, because i have no idea how big the joystick is.
cheers

[bgonc1482]

Hi bgonc, a momentary switch will only stay on when you press it. So if you wanted it to control your LED's on/off status, you would have to hold it in the on position with a finger for the entire time you wanted the LED to be in the on position. Converting it to a Latching swith is probably your best choice if it controls that facet of your saber. Some people use momentary switches with sound options, like the flash on clash effect you can get from some of the soundboards that are available, but i kind of doubt that you would be able to tuck that all too safely inside a joystick and still have room for batteries. Then again i shouldn't spout off too much, because i have no idea how big the joystick is.
cheers

Thanks for the response.

The joystick isn't the actual saber, it's just the handle. Basically, you would hold the joystick, and it would connect to the saber hilt, which runs parallel to your arm until about your elbow, where the blade comes out.

So I won't need to fit the electronics inside the joystick.

Thanks though.