Movement switches

After discovering the benefit of the mercury switch, or any tilt switch for that matter, i wanted to create my own from scratch. Using ball bearing recovered from a industrial castor, lead holder tubes and some copper wire, i was able to create an okay switch. The problem was the connection between the bearing and the copper wire. I then found some aluminum pipe, 1/8 " diameter, and cut some finishing nails, and achieved the same result. They work, but they do not consistently change to a change in angle. I found this site for homemade switches , check it out:

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/07/simple_homemade_tilt_acti.html