NEW ELECTRIC SWITCH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20722, 15 November 1930, Page 5 (Supplement)

NEW ELECTRIC SWITCH.

BREATH OF AIR AT WORK. An electric light that can bo blown out with the same small puff that extinguishes a match was placed on exhibition at the Westinghouso Lighting Institute recently. Its secret is a new kind of electric 'switch, the " breath relay," for which is promised many useful applications. 1// can be set to turn either on or off. It give a third " hand" for some kinds of mechanical operations, and a substitute for hands in cases where a worker wishes to avoid direct touch.

Tho latter purpose was the object of the inventor, Dr. E. E. Free, New York consulting engineer. But when the device was perfected by the Weslinghouse Company it, proved to be unexpectedly reliable and not greatly subject to operation by vagrant breezes.

The company savs it can be used for safety devices and for extending the operator's control of automobiles, aeroplanes, scientific apparatus, punch presses and other machines in which hands and feet are busy. It can be also marto to actuate devices that open service doors of restaurants and to operate the Carriage of typewriters and billing machines. It is even claimed that the breath device can be made to turn the pages of sheet music. For extinguishing the lights a person blows into a trim little funnel, which resembles the mouthpiece 'of a telephone. Tho breath strikes phosphor bronze springs, arranged so that the air impact. strikes a large surface, and is thereby amplified sufficiently to make a regular " contact." The position of the springs at the bottom ot the funnel protects them from being affected by ordinary air currents.