What is a Double Pole Switch?

What is a double pole switch?

Double pole switches are connected to two separate electric circuits. They essentially contain 2 switches which are linked together and can complete the circuit either simultaneously or staggered.

Double pole switches are used in different types of application, they are popular in the medical industry as well as more commercial applications found in everyday life.

Types of Double Pole Switch

There are different types of double pole switch. This is dependent on the number of throws they have; they are known as double pole single throw and double pole double throw.  These again can be staggered or work simultaneously.

Double Pole Single Throw

A double pole single throw switch controls two circuits (poles) and has 2 states an “on” (closed) state and an “off” (open) state. A double pole single throw has four terminals in total, two inputs and two outputs which are all controlled by the same switch.

Double Pole Double Throw

A double pole double throw switch is connected to two different circuits, each input can be connected to either of the outputs with six terminals in total, the two inputs and 4 outputs. These types of switches have 3 states; open (off), circuit 1 closed and circuit 2 closed. There are 4 contacts in total.

Uses for Double Pole Switches

One of the more common uses for a double pole switch is a light and fan combination. Often the light switch and the fan are on different circuits but can be controlled by the same switch.  Some more industrial applications can include;

For Herga products we have found that the most common applications for our double pole footswitches are within the medical industry; in these cases, the double pole switches are wired for redundancy as a safety feature within the application.

Our double pole air pressure switches are used within liquid level control and measure the levels within tanks.

Double Pole Switches from Herga

We have a range of air/pressure switches and footswitches which are double pole.

Double Pole Air/Pressure Switches

·         6872

·         6722

·         6732

·         6742

Our double pole air switches are compatible with our pneumatic switches and can be seen on our pneumatic line card for comparison.

Double Pole Footswitches

Almost all our footswitches have the option of being double pole except for a few. All the technical details of our footswitches can be seen and compared on our footswitch line card.

If you have an application for a double pole switch, please contact us to discuss your requirements.