Stepping Switch - Two Axis Stepping Switch

Slightly more complicated was the two axis stepping switch, (also called Strowger switch or two motion selector in Britain). Typically, a single compact group of wipers could connect to one of 100 (or 200) different fixed contacts, in ten levels. When the switch was idle, the wipers were disengaged from the fixed contacts. The wipers moved up and down on a vertical shaft, and rotated into the contact bank to make a connection. Gravity returned the wipers to their home position at the bottom.

This type had two stepping coils with pawls and ratchets, one to raise the wipers to the desired banks of contacts, and one to rotate the wipers into the banks. These were commonly used in telephone switching with ten banks of ten contacts. The coils were typically driven by the electrical pulses derived from a rotary telephone dial. On a two-motion selector, as a digit was dialed, the wipers would step up the banks, then automatically rotate (self-step) into the selected bank until they found an "unused" outlet to the next switch stage. The last two digits dialed would operate the connector switch (final selector in Britain). The second to last digit would cause the wipers to move up and the last digit would cause them to rotate into the bank to the called customer's line outlet. If the line was idle then ringing voltage would be applied to the called line and ringing tone was sent to the calling line.

Another variant of the two-axis switch was the Stromberg-Carlson X-Y Switch which was quite common in telephone exchanges in the western USA. It was a flat mechanism, and the moving contacts moved both sidewise, as well as to and fro. It was quite reliable, and could be maintained by people with minimal training.