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Mivey:
When I built my house I did things for function, quality, and I also tried to minimize cost. I am not in a low cost neighborhood, nor a super expensive one.
The RR relay and other similar ones at that time were being sold on cost reduction (less copper), but in reality that was not the result. They should have put the major marketing on function. However, my cost was not much greater than conventional wiring and it was a lot easier. I used gang boxes for the relays rather than locating the relay at the destination. By using gang boxes I used more copper, but I think a better overall system.
Here is an illustration of function. A wall between the dining room and the kitchen, next to the door, has switches on both sides in almost the same location. On each side there is a switch to that room and another switch to the adjacent room. The light in the entered room can be turned on from the room being excited. This means you do not have to enter the room and turn around to turn on the light. On exciting the room you use the switch in the room from which you are exciting to turn off the light of that room. UP always means ON, and DOWN always means OFF.
Garage is another good example. I do not have to go outside and enter the garage to see if the light is on and I can unambiguously turn the garage light off from the house.
A lot of electricians in need of work might try to up-sell customers to more functional lighting control. Maybe sell on energy conservation as well as convenience.
In 44 years I have never had a relay coil burn out. The only problems with the relays have been with a few that have lost bi-stable capability. Effectively the internal mechanism is a bi-stable snap blade switch pulsed at different times from an ON or OFF coil.
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