Lighting contactors

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masterinbama

masterinbama

Senior Member
Location
Huntsville Alabama
Electrically held lighting contactors are held by an energized coil.The same way as a magnetic motor starter. Mechanically held contactors have 2 coils and a latching mechanism. power to one coil latches the contactor on and power to the other coil unlatches the contactor to the off position. I prefer to use mechanically held contactors because the coils tend to last longer.
 
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Cow

Senior Member
Location
Eastern Oregon
Occupation
Electrician
I've been curious about this as well. I've always used the regular DP contactors when doing outside lighting, nothing major, maybe just a few wallpacks around an office building, etc. These latching contactors, how does the price compare, and how are you wiring them into a typical photocell/timeclock setup? They need momentary power to both latch and unlatch, correct? I just can't picture the wiring needed to make this happen without adding more relays than I want too.:-?
 
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hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
Occupation
Owner/electrical contractor
The mechanicals are a lot more expensive, Most have clearing contacts built in, so providing a pulse is not necessacary. If you use them with one three way switch or double throw time clock, control is easy. If a photo cell or single throw time clock is used, a double throw relay will be needed to convert the two wire control to three wire. Not that hard to do.
 
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Cow

Senior Member
Location
Eastern Oregon
Occupation
Electrician
Thanks for the explanation, I'll have to look into double throw timeclocks, didn't know they made 'em.:smile:

Is the extra expense worth the extra longevity? I'm just wondering if it would benefit my customers to start installing this type? Like I said, electrically held DP contactors is all I've ever seen around here, but if there's a better/more reliable way available for a reasonable expense, I'm all for it.:cool:
 
H

hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
Occupation
Owner/electrical contractor
Cow said:
Thanks for the explanation, I'll have to look into double throw timeclocks, didn't know they made 'em.:smile:

Is the extra expense worth the extra longevity? I'm just wondering if it would benefit my customers to start installing this type? Like I said, electrically held DP contactors is all I've ever seen around here, but if there's a better/more reliable way available for a reasonable expense, I'm all for it.:cool:
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The DP's are so much cheaper, that the payoff with the latching contactors could not be realized for a long time. Typical 8 pole latching $600-$800 and up. You can buy a lot of DP's for that. Most of the latching contactors are used on engineered jobs, such as the big box stores, (except for the Blue box, they use DP's in a manufactured gear.) It is also cheaper to buy an cube relay to control it vs. a double throw time clock.
 
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