Teardown - Omron B2H triple-magnet clicky Hall effect switches

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Chyros

03 Apr 2021, 17:35

Today we're looking at one of the most interesting switches I've encountered so far; a clicky Hall effect switch with counter-moving magnets. Hope you enjoy the video! :)

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vvp

03 Apr 2021, 18:43

I have a guess for the metal plate behind the slider magnet. It is there to linearize magnetic field change depending on press depth. The hall sensor output should be more linear with it.

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Lalaland124

03 Apr 2021, 19:24

Great teardown! Would be awesome to hear what the switches sound like in a proper case.

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hellothere

07 Apr 2021, 22:33

Lalaland124 wrote:
03 Apr 2021, 19:24
Great teardown! Would be awesome to hear what the switches sound like in a proper case.
You might be waiting for a while. Quoting telcontar.net, "Only one B2H switch model has been found to date, which is a low-profile PCB-mount Hall effect switch. No keyboards have been observed thus far." :cry:

Chyros does have a bunch of keyboards, so maybe ...

I think this is the right link: https://telcontar.net/KBK/SwitchCollect ... ies?id=114. For more info.
There's a current Yahoo auction for some B2H switches here: http://bike.contacto.jp/yahoo/lot?auctionID=k543081002. $5.00 a piece.

I looked at the B2R keyboard, which uses these switches (possibly NOS) and they don't look pin compatible or size compatible, so if you happen to find a B2R-based keyboard, B2H switches wouldn't fit.

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Lalaland124

13 Mar 2022, 21:45

hellothere wrote:
07 Apr 2021, 22:33
Lalaland124 wrote:
03 Apr 2021, 19:24
Great teardown! Would be awesome to hear what the switches sound like in a proper case.
You might be waiting for a while. Quoting telcontar.net, "Only one B2H switch model has been found to date, which is a low-profile PCB-mount Hall effect switch. No keyboards have been observed thus far." :cry:

Chyros does have a bunch of keyboards, so maybe ...

I think this is the right link: https://telcontar.net/KBK/SwitchCollect ... ies?id=114. For more info.
There's a current Yahoo auction for some B2H switches here: http://bike.contacto.jp/yahoo/lot?auctionID=k543081002. $5.00 a piece.

I looked at the B2R keyboard, which uses these switches (possibly NOS) and they don't look pin compatible or size compatible, so if you happen to find a B2R-based keyboard, B2H switches wouldn't fit.

Sooo..

I was a bit carried away by the sound of these switches which even Chyros himself stated as ''promising'' and spent the last few months occasionally trying to dig up as much as I could about them. For anyone interested as well here's what I found:

My first lead was the CNC equipment company Fanuc as they were known to use Omron B2x switches in their milling products . I contacted them to see if they could tell me if they once built a machine with the triple magnet switches, but unfortunately they weren't very helpful and said that if they had the information they wouldn't be allowed to share it with me. It was around this time when I also reached out to Daniel Beardsmore from Telcontar , because as far as I know he was the one who knew most about these switches in the first place. We spent the next few weeks trying to go through old magazine in Google Books and found this old entry about ,,Hall IC switches becoming the leading type.'' from the Journal of Electronic Engineering. It talks explicitly about the B2H switch but much to my disappointment it is only viewable in a snippet view, which makes it very hard to extract all the details from the entry. We tried contacting multiple libraries and the original publisher as well, neither of which gave us the full view of the magazine. If it wasn't for the copyright issues this journal would be a gold mine, possible containing a ton of information about Alps switches and so on. Here are some pictures of the B2H article we were able to get from the snippets in Google Books:

Spoiler:
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During this time I also discovered Omron's web page for discontinued products. An old document states a full list of keyboard part numbers which apparently came with the hall effect switch (all together over 20 keyboards!). I was really puzzled over why nobody had found a keyboard with the switches in it when Omron produced them for roughly 10+ years.

With the help of a translator I managed to directly reach out to Omron's Japan headquarters and while they couldn't tell me where I could find the switch, they sent me this very cool magazine scan of B2H containing a ton of information about its technical properties and so on.

Spoiler:
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This brings me to where I am today. While there were a few more hints of old Omron products in Google Books, I still haven't found a single keyboard/pack of loose B2H switches in the wild (other than those already sold on yahoo auctions). Old cash registers looked most promising, but it seems that they also didn't use the switch. Omron themselves only built a handful of CRT terminals which were meant to replace the Uniscope 100/200 line of computers and were distributed under the name ''Ramtek'', but I've never seen one of those for sale myself before.

Spoiler:
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My guess is that only a very specific piece of equipment came with them (like old phones, vending machine numpads, calculators etc.). However, so far there is no evidence supporting that thesis other than that the keycaps shown in the Omron magazine were used in such applications.

Why did I do all of this you might ask? I just want to find this god damn switch in a keyboard lol

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hellothere

14 Mar 2022, 00:44

Did a quick check. I'm relatively sure you can buy the switches here for 600 Yen, which is still about $5 in Freedom Units. Why I say "relatively" is because Google Translate translates a sentence as, "Pin placement is unknown without data." That could mean that the pic on that page is just historical reference.

Have you done any searching on "07Z2R"?

I also came across this Fanuc "terminal." The mount looks similar, but I'm 5,000 years old and need new glasses. Looking closer, the mount goes through a rubber/plastic shroud and the cap attaches to that. I'd want something like that around a switch that's being used in a high dust/dirt environment, like milling.

There are a lot of Fanuc CNC machines out there, it seems, so I bid you well on your search!

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Lalaland124

14 Mar 2022, 08:26

hellothere wrote:
14 Mar 2022, 00:44
Did a quick check. I'm relatively sure you can buy the switches here for 600 Yen, which is still about $5 in Freedom Units. Why I say "relatively" is because Google Translate translates a sentence as, "Pin placement is unknown without data." That could mean that the pic on that page is just historical reference.

Have you done any searching on "07Z2R"?

I also came across this Fanuc "terminal." The mount looks similar, but I'm 5,000 years old and need new glasses. Looking closer, the mount goes through a rubber/plastic shroud and the cap attaches to that. I'd want something like that around a switch that's being used in a high dust/dirt environment, like milling.

There are a lot of Fanuc CNC machines out there, it seems, so I bid you well on your search!
Yeah, I found that tansei listing as well and even contacted the seller to see where he got them from, but he couldn't tell me unfortunately. Might try again later. But thanks, though I was hoping for more than two switches ;)

The Fanuc machine uses the B2R version (the slider is squared and not round that's the main difference between the two). But you're right with the rubber sleeve, that's what all of those keyboards have :)

I tried searching for the LOT number but I couldn't really find anything. The Omron magazine scan showed that the switch had multiple names and versions, so I might try searching for those as well. Honestly, the best lead might be the CRT Omron terminal but it seems to be extremely rare for whatever reason.

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robo

16 Mar 2022, 17:41

Man, that switch seems so insanely over-engineered. To the point that it strikes me as being a bad design, just due to the complexity.

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Lalaland124

16 Mar 2022, 22:30

robo wrote:
16 Mar 2022, 17:41
Man, that switch seems so insanely over-engineered. To the point that it strikes me as being a bad design, just due to the complexity.
Yeah they really overenginereed it for its use-case, especially when you compare it to early skcc switches which were introduced around the same time as Omron B2H.

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