Unthreaded Sub Mini Toggles - Mechanical Stability

benny_profane

Well-known member
Is it typical to have a bit of play (vertical and horizontal) with pcb-pin sub mini toggles? I have some installed on a build and they have a bit more movement than I had expected. It seems like it’s normal (I used a flat pliers to grip some others in my stock to compare behavior), but I wanted to check to see if there might be a mechanical issue.
 
Is it typical to have a bit of play (vertical and horizontal) with pcb-pin sub mini toggles? I have some installed on a build and they have a bit more movement than I had expected. It seems like it’s normal (I used a flat pliers to grip some others in my stock to compare behavior), but I wanted to check to see if there might be a mechanical issue.

I would expect some movement for a switch with pins not mechanically attached to the enclosure.

I would imagine you’d want to keep the enclosure holes tight to the switches for enhanced mechanical stability.

My EHX Good Vibes had unmourned threaded switches and the holes were a CH width from the switches themselves.
 
Yeah, those are my thoughts too. It seems fine, but I was surprised with how much play the toggle housing itself had (both installed and when testing with the pliers).

My EHX Good Vibes had unmourned threaded switches and the holes were a CH width from the switches themselves.
What is a ‘CH width’?
 
@PedalPCB since you've got some experience with different pedals, is the mechanical stability of unthreaded sub-minis reliant on the panel hole, i.e., if the board is unmounted, do these switches have some movement? The pins connected to the board are stable, but there is some movement with the switch housing/sheath/toggle itself.
 
The board connection is fine—there's no movement with the pin-to-board connection. The housing/sheath/toggle itself has an amount of play. My concern is that I damaged it during installation if that it is not normal to have movement there.
 
The board connection is fine—there's no movement with the pin-to-board connection. The housing/sheath/toggle itself has an amount of play. My concern is that I damaged it during installation if that it is not normal to have movement there.

Shit, my bad. I misunderstood your original questions. If the motion originates from the PCB pins, and therefore, the motion involves the whole switch body I’d say you are good.

If the base is stable but the metal portion is moving Independently, I’d say you may have boogered it a bit.

Does it have tabs where it attaches to the switch body?

Can you access them?
 
Shit, my bad. I misunderstood your original questions. If the motion originates from the PCB pins, and therefore, the motion involves the whole switch body I’d say you are good.

If the base is stable but the metal portion is moving Independently, I’d say you may have boogered it a bit.

Does it have tabs where it attaches to the switch body?

Can you access them?
It's odd, the pins themselves are stable, but there is movement with the upper part of the housing. When I thought heat may've damaged it, I took out an uninstalled part, clamped the pins with a pliers, and tested for movement. The upper part of the housing had the same play as the installed part. So, I'm thinking that this is normal.

Unfortunately, these are not the type with the stability tabs.

I can do a bit of disassembly to access. I may just end up replacing them: if the behavior is the same, then I'll consider that normal and perhaps provide some extra mechanical support à la Robert's picture above.
 
The thing with the threadless-collared sub-minis is that every time you flip it, push on it, tap it — the brunt of that movement is born upon the solder-joins if there's any sort of gap between collar and enclosure (there usually is, to ease mass assembly) and eventually movement of the part on the PCB goes from a bit of short-straight blonde to long-curly black movement and then the solder-joins around the pins cracks and you have an intermittently faulty switch that will fail altogether, if ignored.

I bet that's why you see the glue on the S'more Dunkin' example, to help minimise the movement of the switch on the PCB and to delay the inevitable eventual failure of those solder joins.


A threaded, nut-locked switch tightened down to an enclosure cannot transfer the physical momentum of repeated switch-flip-abuse to the PCB/Solder-joins; instead that energy is absorbed by the switch-internals and the enclosure.


At least, that's my layman's theory of the physics of it all...


I first came across the ... aforementioned graphic terminology... while working in the transportation-side of the movie industry — lots of colourful language from those mother-truckers.
 
I have these installed on my Minimu build and if I remember there was a little play back and forth, but have noticed it on the odd spdt/Dpdt as well. Hasn’t seemed to affect functionality anyways
 
The thing with the threadless-collared sub-minis is that every time you flip it, push on it, tap it — the brunt of that movement is born upon the solder-joins if there's any sort of gap between collar and enclosure (there usually is, to ease mass assembly) and eventually movement of the part on the PCB goes from a bit of short-straight blonde to long-curly black movement and then the solder-joins around the pins cracks and you have an intermittently faulty switch that will fail altogether, if ignored.

I bet that's why you see the glue on the S'more Dunkin' example, to help minimise the movement of the switch on the PCB and to delay the inevitable eventual failure of those solder joins.


A threaded, nut-locked switch tightened down to an enclosure cannot transfer the physical momentum of repeated switch-flip-abuse to the PCB/Solder-joins; instead that energy is absorbed by the switch-internals and the enclosure.


At least, that's my layman's theory of the physics of it all...


I first came across the ... aforementioned graphic terminology... while working in the transportation-side of the movie industry — lots of colourful language from those mother-truckers.
I first heard it working my co op job in hvac in high school. Hahah
 
I would guess that the housing movement is not important, as long as the switch relative to the pins are solid. I think Robert's picture confirms that the loose housing is a feature of the switch. It might be intentional, since you obviously can't mount the switch first and then solder the board to the switch. Instead you have to solder the switch to the PCB. The play in the housing might be there to insure you can still fit everything into the enclosure even if the switch is a few degrees off true. My guess.
 
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