Replacing a single pole switch

[Chewbacka]

1 hour ago, Paul Gwilliams said:

https://www.procastnotts.com/product.php/chrome_switches/?k=:::5481531:

 

Has anyone used this company?

As they charge £15 for a light switch I doubt it. 

[Bee]

16 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Worth their weight in copper.  Real switches. You need the hardwood pattresses and cable buckles to go with them.

Crumbs, they go back a few years, I've actually just started making those in brass, just the top piece without the switch part, you can use them without the pattress as they have a flat surface on the top that can take a countersunk screw to go straight into the boat wall wheras the domed Crabtree switch cover does not take screws unless they go in at a funny angle. Whether this all works out or not time will tell but its looking hopeful. Mrs. Bee is complaining that the washing on the line is smelling like an old traction engine though and I'm not allowed in the house unless I take my overalls off. I bet Mrs. Tesla or Mrs. Dyson didn't complain about their husbands overalls.

[David Mack]

1 hour ago, Paul Gwilliams said:

https://www.procastnotts.com/product.php/chrome_switches/?k=:::5481531:

 

Has anyone used this company?

Procast just make the plates. The switches are just bought in standard rocker switches. I couldn't immediately see a switch rating.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, Paul Gwilliams said:

https://www.procastnotts.com/product.php/chrome_switches/?k=:::5481531:

 

Has anyone used this company?

No but their name comes up a lot for boaty bits

[David Mack]

On 09/12/2020 at 20:03, BlueStringPudding said:

*swoon*

Those are just beautiful! ? If the brass ones mounted on square wood were the right size to hide the faded wood from my old switch, I would MUCH prefer one of those beautiful things to my modern one. But characterful beauties like that don't appear when you search online and need to use click and collect, coz the postman don't come to your boat. ?

New ones are available (at a price). 20A current rating apparently - presumably for ac.

https://www.broughtons.com/store/category/38/310/period-round-dolly-switches/

[Tony Brooks]

48 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Procast just make the plates. The switches are just bought in standard rocker switches. I couldn't immediately see a switch rating.

Me neither, no technical data that I could see at all. They look rather small for a decent DC current rating but without something to scale them from who knows.

[bizzard]

You can make your own Bakelite with a lump of cheese and some tiolet Blue, formaldehyde. This was discovered and invented a long time ago by a chemist working late. He had taken some bread and cheese to work for his supper. He'd opened his lump of cheese ready to slice it for a sandwich when whilst he was experimenting with something else to do with formalin accidentally spilt some on the cheese. After his experiment he went to slice the cheese, make a sandwich and enjoy his supper, but as he went to slice it he couldn't it had gone totally solid like a brick. Jubilation he had invented Bakelite, the reaction of foemaldehyde and the protein of the cheese. Can't remember the chaps name or which cheese he liked.

  It was Dr Leo Hendrik Baekland.

Edited December 11, 2020 by bizzard

[Sea Dog]

Connecting 2 wires - 58 posts!  Who'd have thought a single pole switch could cause so much heat and so little light?

[bizzard]

In actual fact it might be possible to make your very own antique lookin light switch. You would need to borrow one to copy. Make a mould with plaster of Paris, no plaster of Berlin as I think Doc Baekland might have been German. Dip the bits of the borrowed switch into the oozy plaster, leave until the plaster has set, a bit like how false teeth are made, dig out the bits of borrowed switch without busting the plaster mould. You can now make your own antique switch. Which cheese to use is a problem, but I think they all contain enough protein. A cream cheese would be best. I recommend the fine Swiss Primula cheese which is a bit runny and fine quality, the cheese always used by my mum to make cheese and tomato sandwiches to take to school and I still love it. It can be bought in cresent shaped little boxes or in a tube like toothpaste, get the original though as they do a Primula now flavoured with shrimps and things. Squirt the Primula into the moulds and pour some Elsan Blue over it it, dabbling it about a bit with a stick to mix it in.  Leave to harden and then dig out of the mould. There you have it, your very own parts of an antique light switch made with your very own hands.  I'll leave it up to you to fiddle about fitting the electrical bit's and pieces of copper and stuff, but to carry plenty of amps make proper knife action switching contacts. That's it . Lights out.

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, Sea Dog said:

Connecting 2 wires - 58 posts!  Who'd have thought a single pole switch could cause so much heat and so little light?

That is exactly the problem with putting DC thru' an AC switch.

[Sea Dog]

39 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

That is exactly the problem with putting DC thru' an AC switch.

I'll set 'em up Alan; you knock 'em down! 

[cuthound]

5 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Connecting 2 wires - 58 posts!  Who'd have thought a single pole switch could cause so much heat and so little light?

 

Wait until we get a question about corridor switching! ??

[ditchcrawler]

27 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Wait until we get a question about corridor switching! ??

I have never seen a DC intermediate switch

 

[Iain_S]

45 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I have never seen a DC intermediate switch

 

If it's two switch positions, you don't need an intermediate. Do you need any more in something long and thin like a boat?

[davidg]

8 hours ago, David Mack said:

New ones are available (at a price). 20A current rating apparently - presumably for ac.

https://www.broughtons.com/store/category/38/310/period-round-dolly-switches/

Cripes, I've been selling mine to people too cheaply.

 

One box turned up on ebay several years ago, when I won the auction the seller said they had four boxes, would I like the lot. It has turned out to be a very long term investment, not sure if I'm ahead yet.?

 

They are very sweet little switches; unlike the secondhand ones which turn up regularly the sprung contacts haven't got lazy so they have a very satisfying positve action.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

My solution to fitting a DC switch to a mains light pattress. Use a blank metal pattress cover, then drill a hole in it to take a proper DC toggle switch. This one is for the solar panels for my boat, between them and the charge controller. Rated at 20A, though there won't be that going in on a grey drizzly December day.

Jen

 

[Bee]

Jen that is exactly what I have done with those brass and wood switches pictured earlier, I reckon mine are probably more decorative (they are certainly a lot more work)  but the same idea and they should work just the same.  Not entirely sure about how accurate the current rating is, I took one apart and there is not a lot of contact area but you have to trust the manufacturer, My boat engine is supposed to be 43 HP and I'm not going to stick it on a dynamometer just to check it and I'm not going to run it flat out to get the whole 43 HP, nor would I recommend putting 20 amps or so through a little switch just because it says so.

[Chewbacka]

17 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I have never seen a DC intermediate switch

 

If just switching a few watts of 12v D.C. led lights then an AC 5a switch will last longer than I will live........

Edited December 12, 2020 by Chewbacka

[ditchcrawler]

55 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

If just switching a few watts of 12v D.C. led lights then an AC 5a switch will last longer than I will live........

I know that, I was just stating I had never seen a DC one for all those who insist you can't use AC switches for DC. Maybe they exist?

[Jen-in-Wellies]

18 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I have never seen a DC intermediate switch

 

It could be done with a DC DPDT switch wired to swap the two inputs in one position.

[ditchcrawler]

44 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

It could be done with a DC DPDT switch wired to swap the two inputs in one position.

That was what I was thinking but is something I have never done and am unlikely to.

[cuthound]

When I first started working we used these to.switch dc circuits.

 

However they may be a bit over the top for boat use even if you could find the space .

 

 

Edited December 12, 2020 by cuthound
Phat phingers

[TheBiscuits]

34 minutes ago, cuthound said:

When I first started working we used these to.switch dc circuits.

 

@cuthound at work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a bad day!

[ditchcrawler]

34 minutes ago, cuthound said:

When I first started working we used these to.switch dc circuits.

 

However they may be a bit over the top for boat use even if you could find the space .

 

 

I worked on an ex RAF salvage vessel that we were refitting for offshore surveys that was all DC, We installed an AC system along side it. Had a switchboard just like that

[BlueStringPudding]

Well I've been having fun - not.

I took down the old plastic light switch that isolates the power to the water pump. While detaching the two wires from it, something broke inside the switch. So I decided I might as well wire in my new posh metal switch. While doing so, I got zapped from the base plate ? Not painful but it was uncomfortable in the knuckle of the finger that got the shock. I decided to finish off wiring it in anyway, which is when I discovered that there's something wrong with the COM screw terminal. Unlike the LOAD terminal, it won't screw all the way down. Unfortunately, neither will it unscrew totally so I can't remove the screw or metal terminal part from the main body of the switch. I think it has a knackered screw thread. B*gger. So I've gone from having two switches to none switches.?

Then I remembered that in a cupboard somewhere is an unused 13A switched metal clad fused spur.  It's not a thing of beauty but I've used that as a temporary replacement until I can get a new, aesthetically pleasing switch with good sized terminals. Unlike the light switches, the spur switch had a lot of different terminals. I want to check with you that I've wired it correctly/safely for now:

I've connected the 12v live feed wire to the SUPPLY L terminal. And the pump wire to the LOAD L terminal. I've done nothing else with it. It's working fine as an isolation switch for the pump (and hasn't zapped me). Does that wiring sound okay?