And these were also non-illuminated as well. In the early 1960's, my father swapped-out a few non-illuminated switches with the neon bulb version. Several years later, when was about 11 years old, I found that stash of retired switches, took one apart, and was intrigued by the 'pellet' that was the actual switch. A friend and I determined it had mercury in it before we opened it, so we did some research before proceeding further. I was a bit afraid at first, having found out that mercury was used in explosives (fulminate), but after cracking open the first one we did the others. I still have that small batch of mercury in a glass bottle after nearly 50 years.
The pellets are metal on both sides, separated by glass or ceramic. As the pellet rotated, the mercury could flow thru a hole in the ceramic or glass separator and make electrical contact between the 2 metal sides. It was rather clever. Due to concerns about toxicity, as well as the rising cost of mercury, switches became mechanical-only. Some thermostats had a mercury bulb that made electrical contact. On Friday, January 15, 2021 at 7:15:04 AM UTC-8 martin martin wrote: > Greetings all, > > These are no longer available in the US as of 40+ years ago. I found one > in a box and had to put it back in to service! > They were sold as "silent switches". Small tube of mercury to make the > contact and the toggle switch has a large NE-2 for a nice looking night > light. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/9336e78b-4036-4756-8796-2f356b7075d8n%40googlegroups.com.
