Ideas for Momentary On Switches

[thesloth]

Recently, I found two pedals that were part of medical chairs (for eye exams, i think). Each are marked up and down and have two switches, which I assume are momentary on switches, because the doctor would probably step and keep his foot down on them.

Does anyone have ideas on what I could use these pedals to control? The housing is perfect for a stompbox but I'd also really like to take advantage of the unique switches that already exist. I am a college student who is still new to pedal building (I have completed a few basic projects) so I'm not ready for anything extremely complicated.

Here are a few photos

[QSQCaito]

Well, you could use them as swithces, CMOS switching can be implemented..

gotta think of other use..

bye bye

dac

[zpyder]

Momentary on switches are the standard interface for channel selection switches.  If you have an amp with a foot pedal jack for switching between gains, reverb, fx loops, etc.  Or if you have an effect (like a delay or loop sampler, or other complex effects) that has a jack for changing between patches, playing backwards/forwards, setting the tap tempo, etc.  If you can come up with a device you are a friend has like this, then you can probably make a very useful pedal out of this.  I think the ideal would be to find somebody with a sampler (I have one, but they're kinda rarerish) because you could have one switch, when pressed, go up one patch, and the other would go down.  And it's already labeled for that!

If you find a device you suspect works this way, here's how to test to see if it will work:  plug a standard instrument cable into the amp/pedal/whatever.  Take a wire/screwdriver/metal thing and at the un-plugged-in end of the cable, simply connect the two parts of the plug (tip & sleeve) very quickly to make a connection, and then take the wire away.  If it is now in distortion channel, or switched patches, you're GOLDEN.  If the change only occured WHILE you had the tip & ring connected, and then went back when you pulled it off, you'll need a latching switch for that device.

Construction'd be simple: Just install the jacks into the box, and connect one of the switch lugs to one of the jack lugs, and connect the other to the other (do twice one for each swithc....) doesn't matter which wire goes where really

cheers
zpyder

[mail_man]

you could make a digital volume control pedal!
http://www.electronics-lab.com/projects/audio/033/index.html
few parts and the box is already labeled for you.