Latching Switch degradation?

**Darth Morbius** · 01-29-2009, 01:08 AM

Originally Posted by Eco

Gundam::
It is Tim's aluminum nut, but I was thinking of removing the switch nut to purposely expose the shaft, so I don't have to apply so much force to the switch.

Pretty, pretty green...

@Hasid/Morbius::
That's a no-go.
I'm not running any kind of sound card, it's a direct drive. I'd rather not have to hold the switch down constantly. XD

Eco, those switches in that link are latching with momentary travel at the beginning of the press. They can be used either way.

We used those on Overlords when the US 1.0 first debuted before going to the red momentaries, and Many people here use them on the MHS sabers still.

I use them on stunt sabers still from time to time.

**Jedi-Loreen** · 01-29-2009, 01:47 AM

The above mentioned one is the only switch of that type that I will use on my MHS sabers (except for one). And I usually end up replacing the other switches in my friend's sabers when someone doesn't listen to me when they order their electronics kit and end up with the "default" switch.

The bezel nut will not work with this switch though, the button is a little shorter, so you can't push it in enough for it to latch. Because of this, I do have the standard "default" switch that I'm using on one saber, because I wanted to use the bezel nut on it.

**Anavrin** · 01-29-2009, 06:58 AM

Originally Posted by Darth Morbius

Eco, those switches in that link are latching with momentary travel at the beginning of the press. They can be used either way.

We used those on Overlords when the US 1.0 first debuted before going to the red momentaries, and Many people here use them on the MHS sabers still.

I use them on stunt sabers still from time to time.

For a moment I was full of hope that it was a momentary switch with a PCB latching relay further down the line and I could wire a custom momentary to it. Then I realized it isn't *dies of disappointment*

But yeah, Eco, Listen to Morbius. Wisely does he speak, wisely.

**vargose** · 01-29-2009, 07:56 AM

My switch was doing the same thing. Then I just recharged my batteries and it was working fine. Every time the batteries are low the switch has trouble.

**Eco** · 01-29-2009, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by Darth Morbius

Eco, those switches in that link are latching with momentary travel at the beginning of the press. They can be used either way.

We used those on Overlords when the US 1.0 first debuted before going to the red momentaries, and Many people here use them on the MHS sabers still.

I use them on stunt sabers still from time to time.

Hm. I was not aware of that!
Good to know!
Thanks for the help!

Originally Posted by Jedi-Loreen

The bezel nut will not work with this switch though, the button is a little shorter, so you can't push it in enough for it to latch.

What if I were to remove the original switch nut on the interior and replace it with a slightly shorter spacer? I've got a threaded washer from an old rotary switch that fits the TCSS switches pretty well, and it's maybe a quarter of the thickness of the plastic switch.

**Jedi-Loreen** · 01-29-2009, 10:51 AM

That still won't work, I've tried it. It's not the switch shaft that's too short, it's the button itself. You'd have to use something to push into the hole of the bezel nut to get it to latch.

If you put in a shorter spacer, all you will now have is a lose switch. The bezel nut is only so long, it will stop at the shoulder of the shaft and not tighten the switch against the hilt.

I emailed Tim when I discovered this, and he confirmed that the bezel nut will not work the same way with the latching momentary switch.

**Tomoyo** · 01-29-2009, 02:00 PM

I actually noticed that the bezel nut doesn't really work well with the SPST latching momentary switch but that didn't stop me from using them in my sabers since I am rather fond of this switch.

What I did was take the plastic nut that comes with the switches and just trimmed it down like almost half way and it pretty much works out. It just depends on how much you trim down on the plastic nut that will affect how hard you need to press down on the switch to latch it on.

Edit: I even took a pic for ya to show you just how much I cut down on the plastic.

You pretty much cut/trim away half of the plastic away stopping where those lines are on the bottom of the switch. Be careful though, cut too deep and you'll crack the plastic nut in half, though they are still usable even if that happens, just cut away the flat black part area.