Stepping switch
Electromechanical multi-pole switch controlled by a chain of pulses / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Stepping switch?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
In electrical engineering, a stepping switch or stepping relay, also known as a uniselector, is an electromechanical device that switches an input signal path to one of several possible output paths, directed by a train of electrical pulses.
This article needs additional citations for verification. (November 2016) |
The major use of stepping switches was in early automatic telephone exchanges to route telephone calls. Later, they were often used in industrial control systems. During World War II, Japanese cypher machines, known in the United States as CORAL, JADE, and PURPLE, contained them. Code breakers at Bletchley Park employed uniselectors driven by a continuously rotating motor rather than a series of pulses in the Colossus to cryptanalyse the German Lorenz ciphers.[1]
In a uniselector, the stepping switch steps only along or around one axis, although several sets of contacts are often operated simultaneously. In other types, such as the Strowger switch, invented by Almon Brown Strowger in 1888, mechanical switching occurs in two directions, across a grid of contacts.