# GE Canada mercury contact Super Switch



## Vintage Sounds (Oct 23, 2009)

Found this laying around the shop. It makes contact by moving a blob of mercury inside a sealed compartment. The action is extremely smooth, like one of those toggle switch dimmers. There's no "snap". Plus, 50 year warranty!


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## Vintage Sounds (Oct 23, 2009)




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## wildleg (Apr 12, 2009)

awesome. take a picture of the package where it says it's good for 50 years. call GE service and tell them you installed the switch 49 years ago and it just failed, can you please have an EXACT replacement (and it has to be a mercury switch). REcord the phone call, and put a link on here. 


thanks in advance :laughing:


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## Pete m. (Nov 19, 2011)

Looks as if your warranty will be up in about 6 years.

Pete


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## cdnelectrician (Mar 14, 2008)

I used to have one just like that! Pretty neat.


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## Big Pickles (Oct 25, 2014)

I replace those all the time around here, take them apart and collect the little vial of mercury.


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## fdew (Mar 26, 2009)

I have a millivolt fireplace control for my fireplace. Two normal switches failed. Not enough voltage to keep the contacts clean. I bought a mercury switch like yours on Ebay. No problems since then.


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## Meadow (Jan 14, 2011)

That's awesome.


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## Mshea (Jan 17, 2011)

I used to do some maintenance at a provincial jail work camp. There was a stream nearby and the convicts would occasionally pan for gold. they would take the mercury from the low voltage thermostats to get placer gold out of the sand and then burn it off, risking mercury poisoning. It took nearly 2 years until they decided to use line voltage thermostats to stop this practice.


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## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

Yeah, gold floats on mercury. When I was growing up, the old guy across the street was a hobby prospector. He would take his truck out to the Sierra foothills somewhere and come home with big tubs of sand, then process it in his back yard with mercury. He used to give us some every now and then, it was fun to play with, the way it rolled around in your hand and how you could make different things float on it, like pennies, was cool. He ended up with countless ailments and eventually went insane before he died. His oldest son, who he used to have help him when he was a kid, went insane at about age 18. I don't think I handled it enough to be dangerous and I certainly was never there when he was boiling it off, but his son was.


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## pjholguin (May 16, 2014)

That old saying mad as a hatter comes to mind!


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## RIVETER (Sep 26, 2009)

Vintage Sounds said:


> Found this laying around the shop. It makes contact by moving a blob of mercury inside a sealed compartment. The action is extremely smooth, like one of those toggle switch dimmers. There's no "snap". Plus, 50 year warranty!
> 
> 
> View attachment 52921


I have about 30 pounds of clean Mercury...anybody want it?


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## oliquir (Jan 13, 2011)

put it upside down and see if it still works ok


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## gnuuser (Jan 13, 2013)

RIVETER said:


> I have about 30 pounds of clean Mercury...anybody want it?



you would need about 30 gallons of concentrated nitric acid to neutralize it 
and after it stopped smoking you would need a bomb squad to remove the residue:laughing::laughing::laughing:


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## Shockdoc (Mar 4, 2010)

Remove fuse or" trip circuit breaker".


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## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

My dad worked at GE Wiring Device back in the early 70's. He described how difficult it was to invent and manufacture a 4-way mercury switch. :laughing:


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## Shockdoc (Mar 4, 2010)

Early GE devices outlast this newer stuff. I still encounter mid 60s backstab only devices still functional and in use in many homes and apartment complexes here.. in the 80s they went to the crapper. Whenever i see a GE receptacle with the orange sticker in middle i know i have garbage to deal with.


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## GrayHair (Jan 14, 2013)

JRaef said:


> He used to give us some every now and then, it was fun to play with, the way it rolled around in your hand . . . . I don't think I handled it enough to be dangerous . . . .


Imagine getting a small vial of mercury in a kid's chemistry today  like I did in the early 1950s. It probably ended up in a rug and now contaminates a landfill.


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## retiredsparktech (Mar 8, 2011)

MTW said:


> My dad worked at GE Wiring Device back in the early 70's. He described how difficult it was to invent and manufacture a 4-way mercury switch. :laughing:


 Wasn't the lower priced wiring device line called "Monowatt". It seemed to be sold at Woolworths and some hardware stores. I remember that they were owned by GE.


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## retiredsparktech (Mar 8, 2011)

Shockdoc said:


> Early GE devices outlast this newer stuff. I still encounter mid 60s backstab only devices still functional and in use in many homes and apartment complexes here.. in the 80s they went to the crapper. Whenever i see a GE receptacle with the orange sticker in middle i know i have garbage to deal with.


Their specification grade devices, seemed to be well made.
Their competitive grade devices were bad, even earlier the the 80's. 
The apartment buildings from the late 50's and early 60's had those strange double duplex receptacles.


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