Mercury tilt swich safety concerns

bomber

I recently found a mercury tilt swich in an alarm clock...:blank::blank::blank:...:frown::frown::frown:...??? I am wondering if there are any precautions to note other then; A) this is a MERCURY Swich I am dealing with and thet mercury is poisonous and , it is a GLASS switch, requiring extera precautions.

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

As long as the glass doesn't break, there are no concerns. Such switches have always been made from glass, and were ubiquitous in things like thermostats, for example. A glass capsule that small is pretty rugged, too, so I wouldn't worry about it one bit. Just don't do anything stupid, like smashing it with a hammer.

-Phil

graffix

If your project catches on fire,leave the area.Serious,even boiling mercury gives off poisonous fumes,but just kidding

Sal Ammoniac

Metallic mercury isn't readily absorbed through the skin, so the danger is minimal. That's not to say, however, that you should treat it like a play toy.

(As a side note, when I was a kid we took safety much less seriously than what is typical today and we did things such as sticking our bare hands and fingers into a pool of mercury just to see what it felt like. But then again, we also had chemistry sets with real chemicals, not the harmless stuff you see in so-called "chemistry sets" today. Ah, sometimes I wonder how we all survived childhood, but then again, I fear for the future of this country when kids never get to experience any real world science/technology because of the perceived danger, no matter how slight.)

erco

Mercury switches were more useful in the past when they were used to conduct higher currents for direct switching for heater thermopiles, for instance. These days, tilt switches using balls in plastic cages are all the rage. Simpler, cheaper, safer, and greener. They are rated for much lower current, but that's fine since they typically are just a sensor being monitored by a uC.

ElectricAye

If you're going to use this device (and I recommend that you don't) it's probably a good idea to look up ahead of time how to clean it up in case it breaks. See the link below, get yourself some sulfur, etc. so you can take care of it right away.

http://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/chemicals/hsees/mercury/cleaning_up_a_small_mercury_spill.htm

If you don't want to use it, then call up your local waste facility and ask them if you can drop it off there. Most places will probably accept it without charging you.
If you really want to play with a liquid metal at room temperature, then look into alloys such as gallium indium tin, etc.

bomber

Sal Ammoniac wrote: »

I fear for the future of this country when kids never get to experience any real world science/technology

That may happen in several hundred years, but for now there is a lot of living proof (including myself) that kids do play around with technology.

Sal Ammoniac

bomber wrote: »

That may happen in several hundred years, but for now there is a lot of living proof (including myself) that kids do play around with technology.

Examples? When I say "technology", I don't mean an Xbox360. When I was a kid, we routinely played around with tube electronics (with several hundred volts DC on the plate circuits), fireworks, chemistry sets (with real chemicals), thermite, etc.

Nowadays, when kids play around with technology, it's usually low-voltage, sugar-coated stuff with no possibility of causing harm if misused. These days even jungle gyms in playgrounds are going away because of the "danger" they pose.

bomber

What I meant, was that I am a kid, and that I do play around with high voltage circuits , soldering irons, and mercury tilt switches.