Latching relay for lighting control

[estratos]

Hi all.

I'm looking for a good latching relay to control lights. I need a relay that let me change its state just applying a pulse to the coil (or coils). I don't want to change the pulse polarity in order to revert the contact position because this relay will be controlled by a single DS2406 1-Wire chip.

TLC, from GE is what I need but I'd prefer 12vdc coils rather than 24vdc. This kind of relay allows controlling lights and other appliances not only from the home automation circuit but also from any momentary push button connected to the relay coil.

Any suggestion?

Thanks,

Daniel.

[Tomi Engdahl]

I don't have any specific relays to recommend.
I have done some testing with one relay from ESMI
http://www.esmi.fi/suomi/middle/Tuottee ... 1157FI.pdf
but I don't know fi they are geenrally a good investments and available where you are.
ESMI lists as avaialble coil voltages being (12), 24, 230 VAC and 12, 24 VDC.

Using latchign relay that changes state with pulse is a working idea when you want control with home automation and momentary push button. It will work quite easily.

When doign serious automation one thing with this kind of on/off with pulses type relays: those relays are not generally 100% reliable that every pulse changes the relay state. ESMI lists on their documentation the reliabilty being only 99% (based on experience the reliabity of this kind of systems goes down when relays get old over years). The potential 1% fail rate on momentary push button control when human uses the button should not be a problem, when the user gets feedback that light did not change state as expected will just press button again and things are right.
If the controlling is done with home automation system that does not have any feedback fro relay state, quite strange things can happen when the relay misses one control pulse...

In automation systems where absolute reliabity is needed, typically two coil latching relays and feeback are used. Those two coil latchign relays turn on when pulse gets to first coil, and turn of with pulse to second coil.

[estratos]

Thanks Tomi for the info, but, as you suppose, I need a latching relay with status reporting. In fact it should be a sort of latching relay with some electronics integrated in it.

Daniel.

[Tomi Engdahl]

If you are interresting on modules that contains relay and electronics, then this one looks interresting http://www.velbus.be/


By the way where do you live ?
When looking for some relays etc. that are planned to control mains voltage it could be useful to know the country where you are. So the recommendations can be targeted better. Different cuntries use different voltages (110-120V and 220-240V ranges being most common), have different regulations, etc.. Thus different products can be targeted to different markets. And are sold by different companies on different countries.

[estratos]

Tomi, I live in Spain. 220-240V 50Hz for main power. I'm looking at the website you recommend me. I didn't know that Velleman had a home automation product family.

Thanks again.

Daniel.

[antorsae]

Hi Daniel,

I am in the exact same search: I want to have pushdown buttons that output 24 VDC pulses when pushed, and a latching relay with a single 24 VDC coil ot switch 240 VAC for lighting control.

Did you find anything interesting!

Regards ALSO from Spain!

[estratos]

Have you looked at the TLC family? They have even supervisory pins that show the relay current state. For the 12 VDC range I've not been able to find anything useful for my application thought.

Daniel.

[antorsae]

Hi Daniel,

Can you send me the URL or PDF for the TLC family. I quickly searched TLC and GE and found a lot of rack enclosures, etc.

BTW, this:

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/i ... OUNT_.html

might be what you are looking for.

[estratos]

http://www.geindustrial.com/cwc/product ... d=tlc-rely

These relays are specially designed for lighting control systems. Thanks a lot for the link.

Daniel.

[antorsae]

Daniel - the problem with the TLC ones is that they have two coils, one to SET and another to RESET the relay. In my application I just need a relay with one coil that TOGGLES the relay state upon each incoming pulse.

[estratos]

I've not read the TLC spects but I was almost sure that they were electronically controlled by single pulses, as if they had a single coil. Sorry.