I have a pet project I’ve been working on to modernize an electric organ console, and one of the final things needed are toggle switches. On a modern organ these are able to be manually toggled, or they can be flipped up/down programmatically using electromagnets (video). The ones purpose built for this are obscenely expensive but I can’t find anything even remotely similar. Am I crazy for thinking this kind of switch are used in more things than just organs?
well dang. The ones I linked are $35-55 a pop new and the organ I have would need roughly 73 of them lol. Barring a miracle find from someone I’m assuming the touch screen I’ve been using is there to stay.
I just had another thought on this. A servo isn’t just a rotational actuator like a motor. It is also an encoder (Potentiometer). It knows what position it is in, and can be back-driven into a different position. You can use a servo as both the physical toggle and as the actuator to flip that physical toggle.
https://learn.adafruit.com/analog-feedback-servos/servos-as-input-devices
You can modify regular servos to break out the wiper; you don’t need to purchase a special feedback servo.
This might work with the original parts which would be shockingly nice, I have a few cheap Amazon servos on order to see if they might work