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A switch is a device for making or breaking an electric
circuit, or for selecting between multiple circuits.
In the simplest case, a switch has two pieces of metal called
contacts that touch to make a circuit, and separate
to break the circuit. The contact material is chosen for its
resistance to corrosion, because most metals form insulating
oxides that would prevent the switch from working. Sometimes
the contacts are plated with noble metals. They may be designed
to wipe against each other to clean off any contamination.
Nonmetallic conductors, such as conductive plastic, are sometimes
used. The moving part that applies the operating force to
the contacts is called the actuator, and may be a toggle
or dolly, a rocker, a push-button or
any type of mechanical linkage
A DPDT switch has six connections, but since polarity reversal
is a very common usage of DPDT switches, some variations of
the DPDT switch are internally wired specifically for polarity
reversal. They only have four terminals rather than six. Two
of the terminals are inputs and two are outputs. When connected
to a battery or other DC source, the 4-way switch selects
from either normal or reversed polarity. Intermediate switches
are also an important part of multiway switching systems with
more than two switches (see next section).
A KVM switch (with KVM being an acronym for Keyboard, Video,
Mouse) is a hardware device that allows a user to control
multiple computers from a single keyboard, video monitor and
mouse. Although multiple computers are connected to the KVM,
only one can be controlled at a time. Modern devices have
also added the ability to share USB devices and speakers with
multiple computers.
A user connects a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to the KVM
device, then uses special cables to connect the KVM device
to the computers. Control is switched from one computer to
another by the use of buttons on the KVM device, with the
KVM passing the signals between the computers and the keyboard,
mouse and monitor depending on which computer is currently
selected. Most devices also allow control to be switched through
keyboard commands (such as hitting a certain key, often Scroll
Lock, rapidly two or three times). Some KVM devices also send
signals to the computers that are not currently selected to
ensure that they do not think that the keyboard, mouse and
monitor are dis-connected.
other widely used switch
KVM Switch
Pressure switch
Network switch
Micro switch
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