deskthority

In order to take this photo—100% disassembly—I had to pull off the little contact spring:
Having had this switch lying around in bits for ages, I finally put it back together. I got the little wire back on (and bent it back to the correct shape, since it got bent in the process), and the switch still works!

I also noticed something — RS 335-794 (the other type I bought) is much heavier. RS 337-217 seems to be around 75 g actuation (I don't have a vice or anything to attach my multimeter probes onto the switch); 335-794 is way heavier, possibly as much as twice as heavy.

One day I need to buy one of each for someone to run through their switch tester; mine aren't the same spec as HaaTa's, which have more turns to the spring and are presumably a lighter weight, more like 60 g.

The springs in mine are 17.0 mm (RS 335-794) and 17.7 mm (RS 337-217) in length and the wire gauges are 16–18 thou (0.41–0.46 mm) (RS 335-794) and 14.5–15 thou (0.36–0.40 mm) (RS 337-217) — the US/Imperial and metric figures aren't exact matches for each other, but this is all well outside of the tolerance of a digital caliper, so the figures are only approximate (I think my caliper just makes them up as it goes along).

Spring outer diameter is around 6.9 mm.

Your switch photo's are usually good, this shot is superb. No shadows in the way and perfect light. I know how hard it can be to shoot these small objects! I need to practice this more. Is this switch still manufactured?

I started using a ghetto reflector (several sheets of A4 on a clipboard) that helps, but the background is still uneven — the flash is too close to the subject by far. I intend to post a bunch more photos later — I took some more earlier to complete the set, as part of working through my backlog of 1,700 unsorted photos (down to 820 now including the new ones). By chance I noticed in the process that RS 335-794 was stupidly heavy — the difference is the wire gauge of the spring.

Nick from Devlin said, "Our records show we've not bought since 2005 and not supplied to RS since 2008." They were sourced from Datalux, who took over manufacturing the MEI Microtype Space-Saver Keyboard as the Datalux SpaceSaver, so that's pretty much guaranteed proof that it's the same MEI. I assume we're just working through old stock.

I've just bought two more of the heavy ones for someone's switch tester, since I realised that I could buy ML switches from RS (just ordered 50, so that I've got spares to hand out). I noticed also that Digikey still sell a variety of M8 switches, but all in quantities of 500 minimum and none are in stock.

so you bounce your flash off the ghetto reflector at what distance? I sometimes cover my flash with white paper completely to diffuse it. Works in some situations. On another note I owned a Datalux SpaceSaver with MEI switches last year. Strange keyboard. Webwit is selling, or trying to sell one right now.

I just mess about with the angle and distance, but somewhere in the 5–15 cm range.

A Datalux panel or tray keyboard with ML switches and GlidePoint, and with Windows keys, would be interesting, but I'd rather lose the numeric keypad and have the GlidePoint at the top right.