SDM Sonic Savings

Knife Switches And Cute Lil' Speakers At American Science And Surplus

July 20, 2007
Switches and Speakers at American Science and Surplus
Gadgets and gizmos can go a long way toward spicing up your Dj set, your home life, whatever it is you finally decide to do with this stuff, you can get a lot of widget satisfaction for a few bucks at Chicago's favorite overstock store. In this episode of Off the Truck, Rob Warmowski demonstrates a nifty switch that came straight out of a Roadrunner cartoon, and we clap our collective hands at the sight of oodles of teeny tiny little speakers. Well, a few of us clap our hands.
Clap your hands or whistle or even faint dead away while perusing the official American Science and Surplus site.

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ROB WARMOWSKI: Now what we got here is something partly for electrical practicality and partly for show. We got what's called the knife switch. This is an old-fashioned type of switch. And if you, say for example, wanted to start your DJ set by throwing a big decorative switch to get the power on and turn everything on, here is your actual switch.

It actually is called the knife switch because it's a thin blade of metal, and it closes. The switch actually closes when you swing it down and insert it into the connector there. This completes a circuit, this opens up the circuit, so it's just a simple switch called the knife switch, and they've got them here for $2.25 a crack, so again, you know, almost too cheap to pass up. If you even have the slightest chance of doing any sort of project that requires a big cool-looking switch like that.

These are bins of speakers, a whole huge assortment of speakers, and they're small speakers as you can see. They have ohm ratings that are spelled out. They are 45-ohm ratings for these. They are 2-1/4", and they all work. That's the thing. You can tell them they work. One of the reasons that you can expect that they work is that they all have a magnetic -- the magnets inside, the actual drivers are all working. You can actually use these as refrigerator magnets if you don't even necessarily, you know, use them as speakers to actually drive sound, but they will take sound. These are the kind of speakers that you might find in, I don't know, a cheap clock radio or some kind of object like that, some kind of appliance. Again, it's $0.75 a crack. Building your own tabletop multiple speaker matrix is absolutely possible using these as long as you know what voltages they're expecting and as long as you, you know, don't blow too many of them when you do your experiments. Of course, it's $0.75 a piece, blow 10 of them, you're not even out 10 bucks.

I need awesome gear... I'd like a free gear catalog!
My opinion is awesome. I'd like to take a gear survey