Toggle Dry Switching

[dknguyen]

Has anyone ever experienced problems with using toggle switches for digital inputs? THere are some toggle switches I like but their current ratings (5-15A) seems rather high so if dry switching is ever a proble, it's going to be one here.

 

[crutschow]

As long as you switch a mA or so at a few volts, I don't think you'll have a problem, especially if the switches has never been used to switch high currents.

 

[Mr RB]

Those larger toggle switches are designed to smack their contacts together with quite a lot of force, so they should be pretty immune to dry switching problems (if they are new as crutschow already said).

 

[shortbus=]

Why not use a CD4066 or 4016 to do the actual digital switching at the circuit level controlled by your toggle switches?

 

[Boncuk]

I have never experienced a bounceless switch.

Even electrically driven power switches for 150KW motors bounce. You can hear the result when you stand close to the switching cabinet.

After closing there is a sound like frying a "Wiener Schnitzel" for about 1 minute.

Those switches have to be changed at least every two months.

Boncuk

 

[Mr RB]

Is this about contact bounce or dry switching problems?

 

[dknguyen]

My question is about dry switching and not bounce. I suppose the first sentence of my first post was a bit vague, but the second one should have made things specific (and the thread title too).

 

[crutschow]

As an addendum to my previous post, if the load is very small (such as a CMOS gate) then you should add a resistor to always have a mA or more through the contacts to minimize any dry switch problems.