Anyone have switch problems?

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brooklanebrewing

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I ordered the same selector switches that Kal uses from the electric brewery and they are very temperamental. I am in the testing phase and, of 5 switches, only one works every time. Basically, i can switch them on and power flickers on and off. If i wiggle the switch knob the power flickers on and off. Wondering how so many people are using these switches with no problems. To me they seem like junk. Any one else have this problem?

Thanks
 
brooklanebrewing said:
I ordered the same selector switches that Kal uses from the electric brewery and they are very temperamental. I am in the testing phase and, of 5 switches, only one works every time. Basically, i can switch them on and power flickers on and off. If i wiggle the switch knob the power flickers on and off. Wondering how so many people are using these switches with no problems. To me they seem like junk. Any one else have this problem?

Thanks

I am not sure of the switch you are using but if they are two part, make sure the body is screwed tightly to the actuator.
 
If you are talking about the $5 switches from Asia Engineer off of ebay, then yes they are absolute garbage. Out of the 5 switches my buddy received 2 worked 95% of the time and the other 3 not at all. He sent them back and only 1 worked the second time. The company stated they would exchange them again but would not refund his money. The problem is the switch plunger does not go far enough into the contact block to make a decent connection to allow power to pass through. 2 remedies- You can take a razor blade and remove some material off the top of the contact block where it seats into the switch, minimizing the distance of the plunger travel, or buy a quality switch. (Allen Bradley, SquareD, Omron, etc.)
 
Also stay away from the cheap 30A relays off of ebay. My buddys GFI kept tripping, come to find out it was arcing across the contacts. Once again use a quality one. Not to advertise, but I have quality AB contactors for sale in the classifieds at a fraction of the cost. I've sold dozens of these and no complains, not many left but I'm picking up more soon.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f16/contactors-e-brew-heating-elements-273489/
 
I used the same source as Kal for all my components and I haven't had any problems yet. I've done probably a dozen brews or so on the system so far. I would make sure the switches aren't loose as mentioned.
 
The switches I use are not from Asia Engineer (the amp and volt meters are however). I have not had issues with my switches. They're an all-metal body and look like this:

switch.jpg


I tried a few different types of switches before settling on these ones with metal bodies. Some of the all plastic ones I tried simply did not seem like they would last - even the contact blocks used really cheap parts and did not always switch properly.

I would make sure that the contactors (contact blocks) on yours are not loose. There's a screw to hold them in place.

Allen Bradley and other companies most certainly do make better switches. It's immediately obvious if you have both in your hand and use them. The actioning is considerably better. I seriously considered using all AB on my setup but paying $50+ per switch instead of $3-4 was more than I could swallow.

The ones I ended up with seemed the be best bang for the buck for me.

You may have also gotten a bad batch too. You never know. If you can't figure it out, contact the seller.

Kal
 
I used the plastic one with yellow contact blocks and one did this, had to replace it and they work fine

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