Micro Switch With Coiled Cord For Steering Wheel In A Drag Car

[crowe-t]

Where can I get or what's the best way to make a micro switch with the coiled wire that gets attached to a steering wheel in 1/25 scale?  If I can get the wire I'll make one.

Edited March 24, 2022 by crowe-t

[stitchdup]

If you have daughters or grandaughters with barbies, the old style phones come with small coiled wire thats close to scale. You might also find something in the hair styling or dolls house sections in shops

[Bainford]

Would a wound guitar string work? Paint it black. It would have to be bent to the shape you want, wouldn’t be flexible. 

[Bills72sj]

Find some CAT 5 or 6 data cable. One of the strands wrapped around a hat pin should come out pretty close.

[peteski]

2 hours ago, Bainford said:

Would a wound guitar string work? Paint it black. It would have to be bent to the shape you want, wouldn’t be flexible. 

If you could remove the center core wire then it would be much more flexible.  Not sure if that is possible though.

[afx]

Just wrap wire of the correct gauge around something round of the correct diameter.  I used this method to create the spring for the exhaust pipe and the shock springs here:

 

And for the headset cables here:

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by afx

[afx]

The switch can be made from plastic rod and flat sheet.

[NOBLNG]

9 hours ago, Bainford said:

Would a wound guitar string work? Paint it black. It would have to be bent to the shape you want, wouldn’t be flexible. 

 

7 hours ago, peteski said:

If you could remove the center core wire then it would be much more flexible.  Not sure if that is possible though.

It is possible. It doesn’t come off easily, and it tends to kink rather than form a nice radius bend. It seems to have some sort of glue or plastic binder, so I dipped it in lacquer thinner before stripping it.

[crowe-t]

These are all great ideas!

What would a good wire gauge be to use? 30 awg, 34 awg...?

[afx]

I would guess 30, think that is what I used on the headset cables.

[peteski]

The actual metal conductor in 30AWG wire has a diameter of 0.010".  Insulation in a wire-wrapping type wire has outer diameter of around 0.016".  You can figure out the actual 1:1 diameters by multiplying those dimensions by either 24 or 25 (depending on the scale of your model).