Mercury Wetted Relays

[anystrom]

I am a new engineer (just a year out of school) and am working on a project for my company and need to get some information. We are having problems with our mercury wetted relays that we use on our I/O board. They seem to stick open randomly (after one use or many uses, doesn't matter). We have talked to the company "Gunther" and they have told us to use MOVs and snubber networks to keep them from sticking and to solder them onto the board at a temperature no higher than 500 degrees F. We have done this and still, nothing has worked at correcting this problem. Does anyone know anything about these relays? I would appreciate anything I could get. Thank you!

 

[Lewish]

Are there any coils or transformers on your I/O board near your relays?

 

[jbartos]

Suggestion: Try to replace them with modern solid state switches. Visit

http://www.novatechcorp.net/nibs/nib-008.html

etc. for more info

 

[jbartos]

Small encore: Visit

http://cjmems.seas.ucla.edu/papers/Simon_TIE_1998.PDF

for: [11] Fujitsu Limited, “Mercury-Wetted Contact Relays Offer Variety of Advantages for Tomorrow’s
Uses,” J. ELEC. ENGR. (Japan), vol. 19, no. 182, Feb. 1982, pp. 36-38.

 

[anystrom]

The only transformers and coils that they turn on are in a seperate power box approx. 25 feet away. We installed snubber networks and MOVs on both the relays and the coils.