Switches repairable?

2 of my 3 switches don’t “click” and lock “on” anymore. You now have to hold them for the lights to stay on. Disassembled last night, and the micro switches are enclosed in a metal housing soldered to the board. Trash, or am I missing something?

 

I doubt you're missing anything. They are repairable; anything is, but the question is, "How much effort do you want to put in to it?" It could easily be several hours to get them apart, the microswitches replaced, and reassembled. You'd have to source parts, wait for them to arrive, etc, etc.

 

Yeah, that's what I figured... but thought it was worth asking the question. Might rig these up and arcade style buttons for something else, I dunno.

 

I'm pretty sure I have one that I was messing with swapping leds on, you can have it if I do, it was only hooked up to test the led colors

 

Hey thanks! I appreciate that. No worries though, I can pick them up local, going to get everything wired back up this weekend.

 

This is not directly related to your issue, but I did replace the micro switch in my computer mouse. It was beginning to malfunction, and my particular mouse is no longer made, so I found a seller on line that sold micro switches, found a youtube video, and did it myself. If you know how to solder small things it's not that difficult. Micro switches are generally really cheap. I got a 5 pack for $10.

 

Some of these switches allow just a hair too much play. Instead of the switch activating the entire pcb slips back. If you can get it to latch by pushing on the socket while pressing the button then it can be fixed easily. Just pop the back off the housing, wedge the pcb towards the button and add a drop of abs cement at each rear corner of the pcb and let dry. You can also do this to the peg where the socket keys into the pcb to eliminate slop there. This is more of an issue with cheap knockoff switches but I’ve improved function on even CH4x4 switches doing this. ARB seem to be a bit better but I only have one from them.

 

Awesome, I’ll give this a shot. Worth trying as an experiment at least.

 

If it was a switch I really loved... I’d consider it haha.

 

Another thing to know is that there’s a triangular window in the top of the metal switch casing. There should be a small solid wire visible. Removing that wire disables latching and makes the switch momentary only so if that wire is missing the switch cannot be fixed. Some people request this so it’s conceivable that Murphy made the switch.

 

My thought is that it's a 15 dollar part. How much is your time worth?

 

Fixing things is sometimes cheaper than replacing and far more satisfying. 20 minutes or less would be a win in this case and it’s a 5 minute job. Sometimes replacement is the better option and may still prove to be the case but it’s pretty easy to check in this one.