3 ms·
Tangental, but the physical mechanisms of electronic controls are often worth study. Ingenious mechanisms move little slivers of metal around in carefully engin
by h2odragon 4y ago
Tangental, but the physical mechanisms of electronic controls are often worth study. Ingenious mechanisms move little slivers of metal around in carefully engineered enclosures. It's a more accessible magic that's easy to disregard.
The "channel dial" switch on old TV's was awesome.
- cfraenkel 4y agoThe engineering & tolerances to make a typical microswitch (what makes the pushbutton actually do anything) would make most peoples eyes water. (from boredom, perhaps...) Fun fact - if you engineer the people facing mechanism to keep the switch pin from being depressed all the way flush to the switch housing, the lifetime of the switch increases by roughly a factor of 10. A 0.1 mm difference in pushbutton throw is the difference between getting maybe a million cycles, say 3 ~ 4 years of constant use, and the switch outlasting everything else in the product.
- eternityforest 4y agoWell, they must not actually be doing that on cheap switches, they fail probably 10x as much as anything except maybe power supply equipment and connectors. Mechanical keyswitches have some pretty amazing reliability though. I actually like the touchscreen everything movement in most applications, partly because of this. A screen may be expensive, but good switches might be just as expensive.