The Top Ten Off Switches

Dan Jimbokla submitted a story that normally i would pass over, but I actually oddly enjoyed it. "CNET.co.uk has a truly funny and read-worthy article up about the top ten off switches. One of my favorite switches from the piece is #4 — The illuminated toggle switch: "This switch isn't designed for high-drain uses, typically it can only provide a maximum of 20 amps at 12 volts. That will make it suitable for a number of exciting uses though, and what it lacks in power handling, it makes up for in practicality. This switch will illuminate when the device it controls is turned on, and go off when the device is deactivated. This is logical and practical, and that has earned this switch a place in our hearts. What's more, it's far from expensive and there are even a choice of colors.""

Big red switch

[brejc8]

Can't believe they forgot IBM's big red switch [lesser-evil.com].

Awesome.

[Aladrin]

This is one of those articles that you think 'Why isn't there more of these!? It's great!' but then remember that if there were more, they'd quickly become old-hat.

Kudos to them for doing it right... #7 was sure a surprise.

Wall mount lever

[jhines]

The traditional wall mounted box with a pull lever on the side. It opens so you can see the simple mechanical switch inside. Lockable, so that you can insure that it won't get switched back on, while your hands are inside the guts of something electromechanical.

Simple, safe, and sure. That is why they have been used, and will be, for years.

Re:Big red switch

[LWATCDR]

I remember that. There was on on the Model 38 at a hospital I worked at. On night we where doing a test of the hospital back up generators. They would power the computer but not the AC. There was a problem getting back on mains power, as the temperature started to get really high we started to do a shutdown. It took a while and the head of the department said that if it hit 95 in the machine room and the system still wasn't down that we would pull the big red switch.
We got mains power and AC back on at 92 and safe shutdown about a minute after that. Don't worry the 38 only handled admin tasks. The labs ran on a Data General Eclipse that was in another room and didn't put out much heat.

Dead Man Switch

[MDMurphy]

They could have left one of the toggle switches out and included some sort of a dead man switch. Foot or hand operated from a train perhaps.

I used to operate light rail vehicles. If you let go of the switch the the train went into maximum braking. I remember it was abrupt, can't remember if it automatically dumped the sand in front of the steel wheels or you had to do that yourself.

Re:Toggle FTW!

[vonhammer]

#8 on the list was the Emergency Shutdown.

I used to work with a guy that had been in the Air Force in Vietnam working in some type of data center. He told me a story about an event that happened one night that forced an emergency shutdown. If I remember correctly, a water pipe burst and the data center was being flooded. As he was on duty that night, he went around shutting down all of the equipment. One machine, in particular, had an "Emergency Shutdown" lever. In training, he was told that he would never need to use it, but it was there. This seemed like an emergency, so he pulled the lever. What he didn't know was that it released a weighted blade that fell down through the backplane severing every wire in its path, essentially destroying the machine.

The aftermath was, a couple of Air Force techs spending weeks soldering the thing back together again, and he got every s#^t job that came up for the remainder of his tour.

Re:In the era of managed shutdown...

[RollingThunder]

My father worked for Imperial Oil (aka Esso) at a bulk transfer plant, and they had really, REALLY fun switches there. Gas-powered switches that you pumped up then triggered, so they would throw the blades at an insanely fast speed to minimize the chance of sparking (and therefore minimize the chance of going WOOMF). They sounded like a freaking gunshot. Great stuff.

Re:Slashdotted?

[rlazarus]

Not the Manhattan project, but Chicago Pile-1 [wikipedia.org] (first criticality December 2, 1942) - the first controlled nuclear reaction, as opposed to the first nuclear bomb. As you may imagine, they couldn't find anybody to stand next to the first Manhattan test with an axe; not even a grad student. Which didn't matter, since (as you may further imagine) the bomb had no control rods.

Re:In the era of managed shutdown...

[xaxa]

I was told (at a chemical factory's power substation) that the switches were in a special oily goo that prevented sparks, and were also spring loaded. You could still get a spark, but the oily goo meant it was safe even if there was hydrogen around. This was for switching 33kV.

speaking of star wars

[SethJohnson]

I think this CNET article is irresponsible for giving credit to some un-pictured mythical switch on Data's leg while not acknowledging the tractor-beam shutdown switch Obi-Wan Kenobi flipped. That sucker filled his whole palm and was mounted on a ledge with a 1000' drop-off. Here's a photo [wikia.com].

Seth

Ethernet controlled-switch

[raddan]

This [digital-loggers.com] is one of my favorite switches. Of course, we bought it, and then realized that we don't have much use for it. But it's a neat idea! Someday we'll hook it up to something.