Roger Long wrote:
Yes the diodes were in the sockets. It makes sense then that the
relay had no polarity markings because it itself is not polarity
sensitive. The red wire on the socket should have tipped me off but
that's the problem with staying up late at night working on this
stuff
Well I reckon you'll learn to get some sleep before working on
expensive/critical stuff (if possible). :-)

Here's a picture of the finished controller:

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Bilge.htm#Controller

Nice to see the end result.

The diodes are way too sensitive a component to have buried inside a
critical system box like this.
Its not that they are very sensitive, its their rather unpleasant
failure mode. :-( This was why I and others were encouraging you to use
snubbers instead. One can design them in safely but that can get way
too technical for all except denisons of sci.electronics.design or
similar 'wire headed' hangouts. :-)

I have the snubber components and will
build them this morning. There is now nothing inside the box but
wiring. Even if both relays should go bad, I can jumper a wire across
the terminals to get the system pumping. I'll mark the box with the
appropriate jumper location just in case.
Couple of spare relay going in your spares kit I hope. Might as well
make up the jumper wire with appropriate ends and keep it taped to the box.

Thanks,

(I should have included you in my header.)
No worries. B.T.W., I am off sailing for a while so wont be able to
offer any more feedback.




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Ian Malcolm. London, ENGLAND. (NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED)
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