[sdiy] Switches, NKK vs everybody else :-)

[Mattias Rickardsson]

At 06:17 2005-10-03, Paul Schreiber wrote:

>I am a firm believer of "you get what you pay for".
>[...]
>Switches: NKK is it. All others are crap. The Mouser 'Mountain' 
>switches are to be avoided at all costs. C&K has *long-term* 
>reliability issues (likes to break in 3 years). I've *never* seen a 
>NKK switch failure in 27 years of using them. I used 6 *million* of 
>them at Tandy. They just make a fine pruduct.

Are all NKK models reliable, or are some series the ones to choose?

The panel-mounted 'M' miniature series seems quite common.
         http://www.nkkswitches.com/series.aspx?stid=1&id=4
Is this the one used in MOTM, for instance?

Personally I'm a big fan of switches with flatted toggles. Sadly they 
always seem either scarce or expensive... so even these half-an-Euro 
dirt cheap Taiwanese ones make me drool:

   http://banzaieffects.com/Low-Cost-FT-SPDT-on-off-on-pr-24829.html
   http://banzaieffects.com/Low-Cost-FT-DPDT-on-on-pr-24831.html

These are even Dual(!) Pole, so you could wire them in parallel for 
lower risk of failure. They can't be so low-quality that they are not 
worth their low price... can they? :-)


/mr