"boB" wrote in message
...
Archimedes' Lever wrote:
On Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:43:20 -0700, Jim Thompson
wrote:

Dead-on, Tim!

...Jim Thompson

Relay opening time on a mechanical relay is NOT electrically related.

It is mechanical. You can slow it down electrically, but there is
nothing you can do that makes the event occur any faster.


Do you think that, with a diode across the relay to reduce the flyback
voltage spike, that slow-er decaying current, and its associated magnetic
field holding the relay in, does NOT slow down the relay opening ???

boB

Here's a pretty good pdf with explanation of different spike suppresion
methods.
It lists drop out times for the different methods, for one particular relay
and values.
http://www.kilovac.com/appnotes/app_pdfs/13c3311.pdf
PS. A diode is the slowest dropout time listed.
Mike