Relays won't stop passing power

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patrickmathews
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Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2011 9:10 pm
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Relays won't stop passing power

Post by patrickmathews »

I have been trying to finish up my controller and it is having a perplexing problem. I have a bcs 460, 4 temp probes, 5 ssrs controlling HLT honeywell valve, MLT honeywell valve, three 115v pumps. I have it all connected now and no matter what I do, all of the SSRs are passing power to the device as soon as I plug in power. It's like they won't turn off. The led indicator is off (unless I enable the SSR - then it turns on as it should). The two honeywells valve SSRs get power via a 24v transformer and the pump's SSRs are powered from the AC bus. I have tried:

1. Screwing everything down tight - there were a few loose ground control connections but that is fixed now.
2. reversing the power in and power out connections - I originally had power in on post 1 and power out on post 2. I changed this and nothing changed so I changed it back. I now have AC power supply on post 1 and power out to the device on post 2.
3. I removed all connections from the SSR to the power outlet for the pump. I thought perhaps there was a something amiss in the way I wired the outlet and wanted to take it out of the equation. I did this and the bare screw (post 2) still has 115v all the time, no matter if I have the output enabled or not.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
ccs
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Re: Relays won't stop passing power

Post by ccs »

SSRs require a full load. Make sure that the pump/relays are plugged in drawing current. Without a load, a SSR looks like it is on.
patrickmathews
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Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2011 9:10 pm
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Re: Relays won't stop passing power

Post by patrickmathews »

OK - I just plugged in a lamp to each pump outlet and it worked as it should. Learn something new every day! Now I know that volt meters and SSRs do not give honest answers.

Thanks!
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