Karl:
A switch is another "weak link" in Hi-G flying circuits. They and your battery holders must be situated with care to prevent acceleration and/or decelleration from turning off your NITE system. As time has passed I've converted most power supplies to Coin cells in one of 3 styles coin cell holders. Allied Electronics is one of my favorite sources for these items.
www.alliedelec.com will get you to their web site. They always shipped quickly and have what I've been looking for
Here are some of the allied stock numbers on the 20mm cell I use in models BT-50 and up.
Best holder for surface mounting or suspension modes #839-1061 holds one cell (2016,2025 or 2032) while #839-1062 will hold 2 cells (6Volts) either are about 1.21ea. a little pricey but the HD holder spring and flush solder lugs make them worth the price.
the standard PC board holder #839-0103 will work fine you'll just have to nip off the pins after soldering..they'll run about .89ea. the other find is a Cheap-O holder #839-0113 compact Thru-Hole holder.. I recently orders a package but haven't recieved them yet. The package is 6.86, the page says per 100 but I think that's a misprint which should read as a pk/10. Still not a bad deal.
Batteries: Sayno was the least expensive
#774-0109 (CR2016) 80mAh, #774-0111 (CR2025) 160mAh, and 774-0113 (CR2032) 220mAh are all 20mm and .60 each. I've been very pleased with the 2032's life even being a tiny bit thicker (3.2mm).
One of the nice things about these holders is all you have to do is invert or remove the battery, I store them year to year this way. NO ill effects.
If your putting the battery in a difficult to access location, than a switch can be used I prefer to use a simple slide switch mounted horizontally to the vehicles flight path. Try to pick swithces with stiff sliding resistance. The ones that must be pushed in slightly to slide then lock back into the next position are best. Becuase we're running such low voltage and mA current I've used RS wire wrapping wire or smaller 30gage copper for the actual wiring to reduce unnecessary weight.
Pick your resistors to deliver the minimum voltage required @ 20mA to get the longest run times out of the batteries, this will reduce the mcd output somewhat but shouldn't hurt if your useing High output LED's to start with.
One more sorta switch idea for ya. a 0-80 brass screw can be used to hold a tiny 1/8" wide or less by whatever length is needed piece of brass flat stock to form a lock down "Contact Switch" on the side of a bodytube or nosecone. Simply coil a short section of circuit wire exiting the body or cone and CA in place as one point of contact. File off or sand the ca from the top of the wire so the brass strip make contact when swiveled into position and the screw snugged down. I've epoxied a 0-80 nut inside the tube or cone on several small to medium models then soldered the other lead to the nut completing the circuit.
If your looking for Glo-Sticks Or anything Glo related try
www.glostickfactory.com You'll be amazed at the "Stuff" they have at pretty good prices
also try to only use glo sitcks as "accents" or in models powered by B motors and below.
As for micro payloads I use a lot of Pratt 10.5mm styrene nose cones and McMasterCarr #2044T42 .40" ID - .456"OD clear polyethylene mailing tubes. I'm sure if you look around the house you can come up with some of this packaging material. The tube your X-Acto knife came in is this size
This Micro Warp-II payload section is a piece of X-Acto knife tube with a Pratt cone
Hope this helps
