I was wondering if there’s any good use-case for mechanical switches outside the keyboard market? And if so, where else can they be used?
I was wondering if there’s any good use-case for mechanical switches outside the keyboard market? And if so, where else can they be used?
There’s a whole linage of arcade game button design, but you occasionally see keyboard switches show up in custom fighting game sticks.
Mice and trackballs often borrow from the whole universe of buttons to make their sculpted formfactors work. I feel like I’ve seen one or two with mechanical keyboard switches in them.
Like rockSlayer mentioned, they just bridge a physical connection between two pins and can technically be used anywhere a typical button could be. Keyboard switches are so optimized for their large square footprint and particular travel distance that they’re usually not the best fit for random industrial needs. You could make an elevator control panel out of key switches, but there’s probably a cheaper, more well suited button you could use instead.
Sometimes it’s kind of fun to scroll through the McMaster-Carr catalog, which has parts for those industrial needs. Their buttons and switches are here. I’m pretty sure the basic mechanism on those is the same as a keyboard switch, just larger.
Some of those panel-mount switches look almost exactly like what’s in my arcade stick, and are probably intended for things like elevator buttons.
*edit: That link is being weird and sometimes not loading. Try searching for “switches” in their search box, then clicking “manual switches” to see what I was trying to link to.