Hi i was wondering if anyone could help me find the right switches for my case there are 4 things i want to do with different switches. 1. On/off switch 2. Cd drive open and close 3. Control ccfl lights 4. Reset switch. I am a total noob when it comes to electronics and wondered if anyone could tell me what type of switches i would need and an idea of how to wire them up and if they are sold in the uk? If possible i would like them to all be toggle witches but i dont know if this would be possible? Thanks Dave p.s I found a few threads asking similar questions but didnt realy understand them could someone try to explain what i would have to to in simple english please.
I assume that you are gonna wire the power switch to the mobo, the dvd tray switch to the circuit board of your dvd drive, and the reset to the mobo - For these you would want momentary switches, in SPST which means single pole, single throw. Momentary means it will return to it's original posistion as soon as you let go. Single pole means a single input & output on the switch, and single throw means one movement or click available on the switch. These guys are examples of momentary toggle spst, and can handle alot more power than the tiny signals you will be using them for. For the CCFL, i assume you want to run the power or ground for the lighting through the switch? In this case you need to make sure that the current of the lighting is not too much for the switch - i doubt it cos CCFL is fairly low power unless you have a crazy amount of lighting. This guy is a SPST non-momentary rated at 10a which is huge so you would need about 100 CCFL to overload him! The non-momentary version will remain switched until you manually flick it back off. If you don't know how to wire the switches then you'd best search for some electronics websites were you can read up on how to wire these basic circuits - heaps available, some here, more here and so on
Maplin sell a suitable toggle, it's (ON)-OFF-(ON) which means centre position is 'off' and the toggle arm springs back to centre from either 'on' position. The code is FH03D, a sub-miniature. Rapid also sell them (and very much cheaper, plus there's a 10% off Happy Hour this week, see UK Bargains in FS) in miniature, 75-0086 or 75-0157 . I can't see a (ON)-OFF type at either place but it would do. Wiring them is easy, one wire to the middle pin, other wire to either or both of the others.
Thanks for your help. With the toggle switches from rapid would i need the SPST ON-OFF MIN TOGGLE SWITCH RC and would this work for all of the switches i want to use?
CCFL is a plain ON-OFF switch. Power, reset and probably CD drawer are momentary (ON)-OFF, I gave you the codes for these in post#3.
