Looking for small, surface mount (as in mount on a surface, not SMD) switches

[The Natural Philosopher]

Have you taken them apart then?

If not, why did you make them?

[Chris Green]

? Can you find an example? The ones I know about are designed for fitting through a hole.

[Chris Green]

Very difficult to mount *in* an enclosure IMHO, and suitable enclosures (as in small enough) are hard to come by.

[Chris Green]

They're cheaper from CPC too. However (unless mounted in a block of wood or something) they still can't be surface mounted, they need a hole. If I make a hole the guts of the switch will be sticking out of the other side of the 'wall', this is the basic problem with anything that mounts in a hole.

[Chris Green]

These are what I'm using at the moment, the trouble is that there is no way to fix them to a surface. If you screw the back/bottom to a surface then there's no way to fix the top on as the screws go in from the rear of the switch.

See discussion earlier about gluing these onto a surface though.

[spuorgelgoog]

I've seen some where the case fixing screws go in sideways. eg

Of course what you really want is the small rectangular brown bakelite surface switches I got from J Bull Electrical in 1980-something but I don't think they had a brand name on, and I don't have any to hand to look at anyway.

Owain

[spuorgelgoog]

There's this sort of thing

Owain

[Chris Green]

Wow, I could have flashing cabin lights! :-)

[dennis]

No mains on the charger?

Switch...?

[Chris Green]

Solar panels.

Though there is mains on the boat sometimes of course and there's an inverter for running a domestic fridge etc.

Ah, I use AliExpress quite a lot, they look good, thank you.

[Capitol]

I think you can buy those from Maplin. I used one recently.

[spuorgelgoog]

Party time!

Owain

[Adrian Caspersz]

Glue the top on?

OK, given that this is all safe low voltage - how about making unobtrusive touch switches?

A 555 should do it.