In a message dated 03/15/2000 8:53:19 PM Pacific Standard Time,
Sethmh@earthlink.net writes:
<< Well could someone please explain what exactly a relay is and how they
work? >>
in its simplest form a relay is a coil that drives a contact. what this
means is that there is a coil of wire that when it is energized(put the power
to it) it has a magnetic potential that pulls a piece of metal towards the
coil. attached to the metal(that is being pulled) there is an arm with a
contact on the end of it. when energized the coil pulls the metal and the
contact towards itself which makes the contact touch another contact so that
electricity can be transferred from one contact to the other. when
deenergized the metal is pulled back by a spring to break the contact.
typically there are to leads/terminals labeled A1 and A2. these are where
you attach the power you want to energize the relay. the other
leads/terminals will be the normally open or normally closed contacts.
normally open means no power transferred when deenergized, power transferred
when energized. normally closed means the opposite.
if you have an ohm meter you can figure out which lead/terminal does what
fairly easily. if it comes to that give me an email and i will explain how.
hope this helps
derek
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