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[levs]

hi, does any one know if there is any sort of switch/micro switch the will on work if backwards is push on the handset? i.e, wired to the motor black/red stay 'switched off' while forwords and netral is selected but 'switch on when backwards/downs is pushed?

thanks
levs

[FullLeatherJacket]

I think I've worked out that you want something which works in parallel with your speed controller, but only switches a circuit ON when reverse motor is selected.
If YES then YES, there is.
If you could clarify what you're trying to do then things might be clearer all round.
Wanna try for the £1000 question?
FLJ

[DickyD]

Reversing lights on his boat ?

[malcolmfrary]

Servo on a Y lead with the ESC working a microswitch?

[Mankster]

Y lead to a servo activating a microswitch.

[wombat]

Let me guess...

New pattern running lights on a tug - the ones that swap over when the vessel is going astern.

Possibly an ACTION P91 will do the jobbie. Has the advantage you can set the switchover point simply

Wom

[FullLeatherJacket]

Servo on a Y lead with the ESC working a microswitch?

Microswitch?? Heathen!

FLJ

[Peterm]

See, Dave, I`m not the only heathen.   Pete M

[FullLeatherJacket]

See, Dave, I`m not the only heathen.   Pete M

No - but the Doc has less of an excuse. He's supposed  to be acquainted with things electrical post-Faraday, Ampere, Henry and Ohm (and Noah?)

We plough a lonely furrow........

FLJ

[malcolmfrary]

30 something years as a clockwork telephone exchange polisher dies hard in the mind.  At least with a mechanical switch worked by a cam on the servo spindle, you get the opportunity to see if its working, rather than taking it on trust.
What were you planning to plant in this lonely furrow?  Is it legal? Is this why its lonely?

[andygh]

You never got as cutting edge as the Strowger then?   

[malcolmfrary]

For those who don't know, Strowger=Clockwork.  You got to see and hear things misbehave, which helped - with the early electronic types you were stuck with an alarm panel and the tender mercy of the fault data recorder and your trusty moving coil meter.

[FullLeatherJacket]

What were you planning to plant in this lonely furrow?  Is it legal? Is this why its lonely?

Seeds of doubt..........or maybe a grain of truth? 

Can't see much difference between the click of a relay and the click of a microswitch meself (the sounds and the connections are identical). If a microswitch stops working you have to take it to bits to see why.............then it's cream-crackered anyway. FETs are far more fun when they  go, 'cos they go BANG and make lots of smoke and smells!

Anyroad up, me duck - Almon B Strowger, the King of Clockwork, popped his venerable clogs over 100 years ago. C'mon, Doc - at least drag your sorry old butt as far as the dawn of the 20th century!! 

FLJ (Purveyor of clever creations that go click without cams or clockwork.)

[andygh]

Almon B Strowger, the King of Clockwork, popped his venerable clogs over 100 years ago

His designs didn't half last a long time, mind you I'm sure my Great great great Grandson will be using my ACTion ESC's in his radio controlled space ships 

[wombat]

See, Dave, I`m not the only heathen.   Pete M

No - but the Doc has less of an excuse. He's supposed  to be acquainted with things electrical post-Faraday, Ampere, Henry and Ohm (and Noah?)

We plough a lonely furrow........

FLJ

Hey, hey hold up a bit - technology should always be appropriate....relays and microswitches are fine as long as you spec them up properly, and accept that they may get corroded and unreliable. I wouldn't use them for signal switching personally, but then again, I am not subject to the same compromises that are forced on many others.

Wom

[OMK]

"...I am not subject to the same compromises that are forced on many others."

Way to go - nice attitude.
Since I'm still a tender eighteen-year-old(?!), I'm really miffed that I missed the relay and clockwork epochs. I still recall the day I managed to cadge a whole bank of relays from a local scrapyard. Our telephone exchange were going digital so they dumped all that treasure. Pure engineering heaven... until the day I discovered my old momma had thrown "all that junk" to the binmen.
I love relays. Would love 'em even more if their coils weren't so power hungry. But when I were a nipper my Grandad told me that one day all the electricity would run out and that we'd all have to power our TVs from 9v batteries. The seeds of thought were planted, so I guess I grew up believing that less means more -- especially in the case of power-hungry circuits. It's a bit of a bummer sometimes: I wish I grew up in the era when BIG volts were king. I can't help thinking that all you older 'uns could still teach the younger upstarts a thing or three about electronics.
My other big regret for being born too late? The fact that you just can't buy an AVO these days for less than twelvty-squillion quid.
How I envious I be. It must have been brilliant being in the electronics game before the advent of this (sometimes souless) digital revolution.

[FullLeatherJacket]

- technology should always be appropriate....

To the task or to the user?  (Discuss - 250 words)

FLJ

[malcolmfrary]

- technology should always be appropriate....

To the task or to the user?  (Discuss - 250 words)

FLJ

Both.

249 to go.

[wombat]

"...I am not subject to the same compromises that are forced on many others."

Way to go - nice attitude.

Attitude - perhaps, but I don't have to compromise - I need something, I have the skills to go and design it. Many don't when it comes to wigglytrons and wavytrons.

Since I'm still a tender eighteen-year-old(?!), I'm really miffed that I missed the relay and clockwork epochs. I still recall the day I managed to cadge a whole bank of relays from a local scrapyard. Our telephone exchange were going digital so they dumped all that treasure. Pure engineering heaven... until the day I discovered my old momma had thrown "all that junk" to the binmen.
I love relays. Would love 'em even more if their coils weren't so power hungry. But when I were a nipper my Grandad told me that one day all the electricity would run out and that we'd all have to power our TVs from 9v batteries. The seeds of thought were planted, so I guess I grew up believing that less means more -- especially in the case of power-hungry circuits. It's a bit of a bummer sometimes: I wish I grew up in the era when BIG volts were king. I can't help thinking that all you older 'uns could still teach the younger upstarts a thing or three about electronics.
My other big regret for being born too late? The fact that you just can't buy an AVO these days for less than twelvty-squillion quid.
How I envious I be. It must have been brilliant being in the electronics game before the advent of this (sometimes souless) digital revolution.

Well I still deal with big electric - variacs and contactors and the like. The applications we work in can't cope with the fancy power electronics and they can't cope when things go wrong (when is an earth not an earth? When some git has just dumped 20,000A into it) What a lot of people have lost is the minimalism that was forced on you in older days. Just look at how many valves went into something like a radio and compare it with the number of transistors and then the number of transistors fabricated in the ICs in a modern radio. What has been lost is an understanding of the subtleties. For exmple how many people these days understand things like drift and thermal noise. Solutions become profligate.

To the task or to the user?  (Discuss - 250 words)

Yes



Wom

[OMK]

"For exmple how many people these days understand things like drift and thermal noise."

Ah, drift... the scourge of the poor old Radio Ham with only a boxful of leaky capacitors.
You're right - it's the subtleties which seem to have been lost forever to the history books as far as modern electronics go. When I were a kid I considered anybody with any know-how of electrons to be nothing short of a god. All you older ones, you all have much more knowledge than the average modern electro whizz, whereas the ones around my age, they tend to talk of nothing other than SMDs. The subtleties are missing... along with a heck of a lot of waaay superior knowledge.

I don't doubt for one minute that you may have seen this already, but always worth another airing...

http://dailymotion.virgilio.it/video/x3wrzo_fabrication-dune-lampe-triode_tech

Much more fun than 9v batteries, eh?

[FullLeatherJacket]

Both.
249 to go.

Yes
Wom

I'm kinda humbled, guys............
FLJ

[funtimefrankie]

You never got as cutting edge as the Strowger then?   

Strowger Rules.....OK

[FullLeatherJacket]

Strowger Rules.....OK

Sorry, but I just can't resist this..........

"Queensberry rules.......KO" 

FLJ

[malcolmfrary]

Strowger Rules.....OK

Sorry, but I just can't resist this..........

"Queensberry rules.......KO" 

FLJ

NO, lesdyxia lures, KO.   

Anyway, Strowger is no more, it is an ex-system, it has passed to the unhappy cable chamber beneath the floor and no more will its clicking and banging be heard in the land, save in sub-standard documentaries on Discovery and period movies.

[funtimefrankie]

Anyway, Strowger is no more, it is an ex-system, it has passed to the unhappy cable chamber beneath the floor and no more will its clicking and banging be heard in the land, save in sub-standard documentaries on Discovery and period movies.
[/quote]
Here's a virtual Strowger exchange, real enthusiast's exchanges still exist as well.
http://www.lightstraw.co.uk/ate/index.html