These are typical horizontal ball type tilt switches. Tilt towards one end and the connection is open, tilt towards the other end and the connection closes.
When horizontal the connection is “undefined” and can be used to detect “movement” in the horizontal plane at least.
Think of it like an old style mercury switch without the hazmat.
Pretty much 10 degrees tilt either way is enough to ensure that the switch opens/closes, less than 10 degrees and it is technically “uncertain” but in my crude experimentation nearly anything off horizontal is almost certainly firmly open or closed with the SW-200, the SW-200D is a bit less certain.
Naturally mounting angle is important, so bear that in mind when you make your thing, you might want to incorporate some adjustability in the angle of the dangle.
I have both the common SW-200 and SW-200D available – what is the difference you ask, well wish I could tell you, the 200D has a dual ball, the 200 has a single ball, what difference that makes I have absolutely no idea. I would use the SW-200 myself unless you have a good reason not to, as in my testing it seems to produce a much cleaner “closed” circuit. The SW-200D, at least the ones I’ve tested, are quite noisy in terms of their closed resistance, maybe this is by design, I really don’t know.
Tilt switches are not used for passing the actual load current to your device, you use these to sense the movement, not to switch the current, use a relay or transistor or microcontroller… to actually do the switching.
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