I know this isn’t really amateur radio, but I thought some of you might be interested in this. After eating breakfast Monday morning, I flipped the light switch in the dining room, but the light didn’t go off. I thought how the heck could the light switch have busted. I’ve never had a light switch fail.
I went downstairs, and turned off the circuit breaker to the light, and then, at lunch time, I drove over to my favorite hardware store—Stadium Hardware, 2177 W. Stadium Blvd., Ann Arbor. I purchased a replacement, drove home, and ten minutes later, I was back in business.
Last night, I got curious about what could have gone wrong. I drilled out the rivets holding the swith together, and when I separated the top from the bottom, the problem was obvious (see below). One leg of the plastic rocker arm broke off, and there was nothing to keep the two contacts apart. (Note that this is actually a two-way switch that I was using as a one-way switch. If the other arm had broken off instead, the switch would probably have continued working.)