Oy vey, Rube Goldberg would be proud..... The zener diode should be around 12V; it needs to less than the maximum-allowed Vgs for the MOSFET so that the MOSFET is protected. If the zener diode is less than 12V, it will consume a few mA when the solenoid is energized, but that's harmless.
Now, as for why the solenoid fried, I have one theory. If you've ever played around with relays and connected the coil in series with the normally-closed contacts, what happens ? You have a buzzer. The clock is similar in behavior; if the contacts close, the solenoid starts to activate and that causes the contacts to open slightly, there might not have been enough time to 'cock' the mechanism. So, the solenoid would turn on again, perhaps briefly, but still not enough to cock the mechanism. It's possible this could go on long enough that the solenoid is energized almost continuously. You could use a 555 timer configured as a one-shot multivibrator so keep the solenoid energized for a long enough time to guarantee it gets cocked, and also guarantee the coil is not energized for too much time. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/cd3b5c42-0866-498f-a1b9-618f7c214977%40googlegroups.com.
