Momentary-closure membrane switch failing high resistance in momentarily-closed position

Nov 09, 2024 Last reply: 1 year ago 6 Replies

My wife has an LED desk lamp: a head unit with two rows of LEDs on an Anglepoise-type arm connected to a mains PSU. There are four membrane switches: on/off, brighten, dim, bank-select (one, other, or both rows of LEDs). They are normally-open, momentarily-closed switches which control a PCB that seems to use power transistors and probably pulse-width modulation to drive the LEDs.



The on/off switch had started to become unreliable and eventually stopped working altogether. The idiots who designed the light had made the four-switch panel inaccessible by welding it shut (no screws to remove it). Grr!



I was able to fix it by soldering a couple of wires to the correct pins on the PCB that the switch unit connects to by ribbon cable, and then feeding those wires to a momentarily-closed microswitch that I happened to have.



But the failure mode of the switch was intriguing. The switch still worked - a resistance meter still changed state - but instead of going to "zero ohms" when it was pressed, it went to about 100 k ohms. I wonder what could fail in a switch that would cause its momentarily-closed position to be high resistance. Severe corrosion of contacts?


How many volts are across the contacts? Also what current are they switching? Could it be the contacts have been eroded by arcing?

Don't know what current it's switching, without breaking the circuit to insert an ammeter. There are about 4 volts across the contacts in the open position.

It looks as if it's low current as high-impedance input to a transistor which is switching the full LED current - about 30 LEDs per bank, and there are two transistors with heat sinks, one for each bank.

Sounds like it should only be switching a milliamp or less. I'd be tempted to dismantle the switch and examine the contacts. It could just be dirt and cured with a wipe of IPA cleaner.

Yes, I would have done that as a first resort if the switch panel hadn't been welded to the shade of the light, making the switches inaccessible. I've cleaned a membrane keyboard from a ZX Spectrum that way, and likewise for some appliance which used the same type of switch with contacts which shorted out pads on a PCB when a rubber button was pressed onto it.

It probably wasn't even a milliamp. My multimeter, on its resistance range, passed enough current to trigger the on/off functionality when I put it across the pins on the PCB which were connected to that switch, even if the high resistance of the switch couldn't do it. What is typically the resitance of a digital multimeter on the "resistance" setting? I haven't got a second meter to measure it!

Your multimeter on resistance range is probably also giving out a voltage, which complicates its interaction with a circuit!

An analogue meter will just have a battery in series, a digital one will probably be trying to drive a constant current into the external circuit.

nib

Duh! Course it is! I forgot that rather obvious fact.

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required