Sunday, July 31, 2016

Two Honeywell Mercury Switches




There's a partial label on one of them, but all I can make out from it is that the maker was Honeywell.

The upside-down one at the left is in its open condition. The right-side-up one at the right is in its closed condition.

The bulbs are about two inches long, and there's a sizeable bead of mercury inside, so I imagine these switches have a substantial current rating. I don't know what they're from.

In the 1950s, my dad had a '55 Pontiac. I seem to recall that he used a switch like these to rig a rudimentary theft alarm in it.

He mounted the switch on the underside of the hood, and wired it so that if the hood were opened with the circuit armed, the horn would sound.

Mercury is a toxic waste bogeyman these days, so I'd be required to take these to the hazardous waste disposal depot were I to want to dispose of them. But I'm quite happy to hang onto them for possible use for something-or-other. I'll stash them in my 'miscellaneous switches' shoebox.

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