At 03:46 PM 6/5/2009, you wrote: >For those who responded that they never have had problems with >appliance timers, which brand & model have you used. >Not all switches are equal in quality when it come to sparks. Maybe >some timers are better than the one I have.
You can get no spark if you use a decent solid state relay which will only switch at the instant the voltage is zero, but the relay will use energy and get hot. You can minimize sparking by putting an "appropriate" capacitor across the switch, opening the switch really fast, opening the switch while the voltage is at zero, blowing out the spark with a blast of air, placing the switch in a non-ionizing atmosphere or using a solid state device to do the switching. But in the end all mechanical contacts spark and making them live through that costs money so most cheap timers don't last so long under high loads, like those of an espresso machine. Ira --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/brewtus?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
