# Pretty much what I was looking for.



## patron (Apr 2, 2009)

from your avatar

it looks like you can steer the boat with one foot
and run the scroll saw with the other

skinning mules should be allot easier now
with both hands free
multi tasking was never better

sounds like a decent switch
and the price is right


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## oldnovice (Mar 7, 2009)

Muleskinner that switch is known as a V3 developed by Micro Switch a division of Honeywell located in Freeport Illinois! There are many copies from other manafacturers because of it's popularity. I know this because I worked there for 27 years!









Here is a link to a distributor

I post this info because this switch has a lot of applications in wood working. In a sealed enclosure they can be used in explosive environments such as this


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## muleskinner (Sep 24, 2011)

Hans, I've used a ton of your Microswitch products in my previous life as an industrial electrician. Their industrial limit switches, torque switches, etc. were top shelf. Made in America at the time, if I remember correctly. Our packaging lines used hundreds of them in all sorts of configurations.


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## muleskinner (Sep 24, 2011)

Patron, believe me when I tell you that when I'm steering that boat with my foot the other is probably occupied with tapping a reggae beat and my hand is definitely damp from a sweating glass. That is pretty much the limit of my multi-tasking.


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## donjohn24 (Oct 15, 2010)

Just to add a contribution from the UK, before I retired I worked for a company that made springs - including those used in microswitches like the one illustrated above (before the change to solid-state devices).

Some of the springs were extremely small. I think the tiniest was a tension spring with a loop at each end, and the whole spring could easily slide under the nail of my little finger.










We used a number of Swiss Wafios Z01 machines to make these springs automatically, and my job involved creating the load checking system that used load cells in place of one that used a flying-spot galvanometer and thermionic valves. (I did start there over 40 years ago!)

Also, to prevent the machines running overnight and making thousands of springs without loops because the gap cutting tools were damaged, I also created a monitoring system to detect missing loops.

I recall the largest single order for these small tension springs being for 8 million!

'Twas interesting work.


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## oldnovice (Mar 7, 2009)

The worst thing that happened to Micro Switch was the genericizing of the name to microswitch similar to what happened to Kleenex as the generic name for tissues. It's hard for a company to sell "their" products when their brand name becomes generic for a class of products.

Honeywell tried to rename the products with their name but the products with the Honeywell name did not sell as well as those with the Micro Switch brand. The boxes marked *MICRO SWITCH* were recognized by the customers while those marked Honeywell Sensing and Control stayed on the shelf even though the products may have been identical. It's been 20 years since I left Micro Switch so I don't know what happened to the rebranded product line but I do know the web site says Honeywell Sensing and Control.

Micro Switch private labeled a lot of the industrial components to a large number of "competitors" but the solid state industrial sensors (photo electric and proximity sensors) were sold off to a European company because their was less margin in the solid state industrial sensors.


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