Electronics - Aquaponics - Demand feeder lever

Probably the most difficult single thing to deal with in making my demand feeder has been working out the lever.

But as usual I called upon chance to solve it for me.

Thanks chance.

For some reason I remembered playing with a switch I bought when I was making the first version of this demand feeder. The switch was one that is a button, and turns on then off again after you lift your finger.

It's sideways click seemed nice to the touch.

The one pictured (centre front) is the same, but is on an old circuit board. I cant find my original version.



It's quite long for a momentary switch.


The interesting thing about these particular, particularly long momentary switches, is they they do their switching thing if you tilt the button to the side rather than just press it. I just tested this one and it works.

They also work if you press it, but it's the sideways switchyness that interests me. It should be perfect as the lever the fish hit, because they can hit it from any direction and it should trigger.




Now all I need to do is figure out which brand they are, and if they all work like that. It might be the case that only some of them do this. It might be a manufacturing error rather than a feature.

Perhaps manufacturing error is too harsh.

Perhaps manufacturing  tolerance would be better.

Either way, I might be able to use it.



120 Things in 20 years - As luck might have it, for the next few days, you might find me in electronics stores with a multimeter, trying to find a switch for my electronic, aquaponics demand feeder lever.