Does anybody know if the folding switches used in musical greeting cards have a special name? Has anybody ever purchased some of these styles of switches?
Thanks!
It's not really a switch (well, maybe technically it is, but I wouldn't consider it to be one).
All it is is a piece of metal separated from another piece of metal by a piece of paper. The piece of paper is pulled away when the card is opened, completing the circuit, and when the card closes, it slides back between the plates, stopping the music from playing.
"real" switches are not much more
but yea FL is right, you could probably do similar with some tinfoil and cardstock
Thanks for the info, I thought that perhaps the switches were flex resistors or something like that.
What I'm actually looking for is some kind of sensor/switch/resistor that could be attached to the fold of a thick sheet of paper. Depending on which direction you fold the paper the sensor would react differently.
I found a Flex Sensor on Trossen but I'm not sure if I could fold it flat:
http://www.trossenrobotics.com/sparkfun-flex-sensor-4-5-inch.aspx
Any advice would be great!
You could have a piece of resistive material connected to one side, and then it goes into a slit in the other side, where there is a contact. The more you open the card, the higher resistance between the end of the material and the contact. sort of like a potentiometer.