MistralS60
Sunday 14th August 2016, 11:24
The lights for one of the "vanity" mirrors in my car wouldn't light. A previous owner must've had a "vain" passenger ;). It wasn't the bulbs, nor the power supply ... to my surprise, it was the microswitch behind the actual mirror.
Searching for "cherry microswitch" on a well-known auction site found one nearly identical to the original at a very reasonable price. (Cherry is the brand on mine.) Beware of low-current switches and make sure you buy one rated at 4-6 amps, as the two 1.2 watt bulbs will draw at least 0.2 amps. A switch rated at 100mA (0.1A) won't be enough, and anyway the nearly-matching one is nominally 5A.
This switch just needed two projecting spurs and one external contact to be cut off, and two 2.2mm holes drilled to correspond with the holes in the original. Fortunately the holes were there "beneath the skin", so nothing was damaged. The switch was then a perfect push fit in the visor and all was well again.
Not a very big contribution, I'm afraid, but I hope it helps someone.
Searching for "cherry microswitch" on a well-known auction site found one nearly identical to the original at a very reasonable price. (Cherry is the brand on mine.) Beware of low-current switches and make sure you buy one rated at 4-6 amps, as the two 1.2 watt bulbs will draw at least 0.2 amps. A switch rated at 100mA (0.1A) won't be enough, and anyway the nearly-matching one is nominally 5A.
This switch just needed two projecting spurs and one external contact to be cut off, and two 2.2mm holes drilled to correspond with the holes in the original. Fortunately the holes were there "beneath the skin", so nothing was damaged. The switch was then a perfect push fit in the visor and all was well again.
Not a very big contribution, I'm afraid, but I hope it helps someone.