New Tilt Sensor?

Using Arduino General Electronics
1

Hello everyone,

I brought the Arduino starter kit and I lost the tilt sensor that goes along with it thus making some projects such as the crystal ball impossible. I would like to go through and do all of the projects in the book to get a better understanding of how electronics work. I am not a total noob with electronics but to serve as a refresher I feel that going through all the projects is a good idea.

Anyway can someone recommend a tilt sensor that is the same or similar to the one in the starter kit? Also what is the difference between mercury and non-mercury tilt sensors? Do they both function the same way?

2

I prefer mercury myself (won't work at -39' below), the others probably use a metal ball that completes a circuit path when tilted.
Look on eBay for both.

3

LarryD:
I prefer mercury myself (won't work at -39' below), the others probably use a metal ball that completes a circuit path when tilted.
Look on eBay for both.

Would this work? - https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10289

I am little confused, why does the RBS040100 have four pins when all the ones I am finding have two?

4

Would this work? - Tilt Sensor - AT407 - SEN-10289 - SparkFun Electronics

Yes.

why does the RBS040100 have four pins when all the ones I am finding have two?

Look at the data sheet you will see that the extra pins are shorted together so there are only two real pins.

5

The metal balls are notorious for noisy contacts.
Mercury almost has a hysteresis kind of affect.