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Self-energising push buttons

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nali:
I've seen these before but my Google-fu is failing me - they have a snap action which zips a magnet past a coil to generate enough power to allow a MCU to fire off a code via a low power RF transmitter.

There seems to be a few finished products out there called "wireless pushbutton" and suchlike which are complete with transmitter and thus require a compatible receiver. But I'm really after just the button mechanism as I want to use my own MCU & TX to interface with existing product.

Anyone know who makes these, or what terminology they tend to use? Looking for mainstream manufacturers not here today gone tomorrow Aliexpress/ebay/whatever sellers.

SiliconWizard:
Omron has some commercial offering: https://automation.omron.com/en/us/products/family/A2W

Nominal Animal:
I'd be interested in finding a proper manufacturer for these, although I'm only a hobbyist myself.  Apparently, "kinetic switch" and "self-powering remote control" seem common names for these.  There are also piezoelectric ones, but that's a different approach (piezoelectric effect, instead of induction with a coil and a small permanent magnet).  Anyway, "kinetic rf switch" seems to yield quite a few hits on the web, including places like ledbulbs.co.uk, which might or might not be a valid UK seller of such stuff –– I not sure as I non-UK hobbyist ––, which leads to brands like "Culina kinetic switches".

BigClive investigated some of the eBay ones way back, and indeed it is very difficult to find which ones are fakes and which ones real, so I don't think even eBay/BangGood/AliBaba etc. are reliable sources, even for a hobbyist looking for just one or two units:




If you find out which ones are reputable in UK and/or Europe, perhaps sold in reputable local brick-and-mortar stores, do let us know, please.
(Here in Finland, it is common for such specialist companies to not sell to private customers, as they only do business-to-business, and because of reasons, I'm not willing to set up a company even just on paper.)

nali:

--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on January 08, 2023, 10:02:14 am ---I'd be interested in finding a proper manufacturer for these, although I'm only a hobbyist myself.  Apparently, "kinetic switch" and "self-powering remote control" seem common names for these.  There are also piezoelectric ones, but that's a different approach (piezoelectric effect, instead of induction with a coil and a small permanent magnet).  Anyway, "kinetic rf switch" seems to yield quite a few hits on the web, including places like ledbulbs.co.uk, which might or might not be a valid UK seller of such stuff –– I not sure as I non-UK hobbyist ––, which leads to brands like "Culina kinetic switches".
--- End quote ---

Thanks, "kinetic switch" was an obvious one I hadn't tried. A quick search finds this but it's not quite what I was hoping for which is basically a switch assembly with coil(piezo) connections instead of switch contacts and would need to be rugged & waterproof to be used out on the street. I need to emulate an existing 433MHz fob which is why I don't want one with an integrated TX.

I'm not even sure such a thing exists but it's something a client asked me about so I said I'd do a bit of looking.

Nominal Animal:

--- Quote from: nali on January 08, 2023, 10:27:27 am ---I need to emulate an existing 433MHz fob which is why I don't want one with an integrated TX.
--- End quote ---
Can you determine the chip used in the fob?  They are often standardized (see above videos), so if it happens to be one of the well-documented 433MHz transmitter chips, it might be a simple case of using a compatible one and just programming the same code.

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