I had some problems choosing a relay a few months back to control some
florescent lights in my garage/workshop. After a bit of research I am
nowhere nearer to a solution...
       Luis
Interesting what the article says about gold not being as durable as silver
under
arcing conditions.

I had wondered once if gold plating over standard contacts in a power relay
might
bring some benefit... allow them to be used at microamp levels without
oxidisation
problems, or if used at high currents the gold might disperse harmlessly
and fall
back to working on the silver alloy underneath. Thoughts? For the
application I had
in mind the current was not known precisely as it depended on the equipment
the
user would install it into... could be some hundreds of uA, or some 10's of
Amps, but
whatever it was once installed the conditions would remain consistant.

On 19 Oct 2013 at 12:49, John Ferrell wrote:

> As an old time relay mechanic at IBM my diagnosis is simply proper
> adjustment is needed.
> There should be enough over travel of the moving contact to assure there
> is a little "wiping" action of the contacts.
>
> On 10/19/2013 11:57 AM, Peter wrote:
> > http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=3D30&doc_id=3D1319831&
> >
> > Worth reading for anyone using relays in small signal circuits. My
solution
> > would have been to analyze the circuit and add small caps (100n) across
the
> > low current contacts, assuming the rest of the circuit would have worke=
d
> > with the additional delay. These will charge to supply voltage and
provide a
> > nice tiny cleaning arc upon contact closure, keeping the low signal sid=
e
> > reasonably clean. No idea if it would keep like this, it is a hack, but
....


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