rangerssuck wrote:


It may not have been a bad relay, but may have been that the one relay
that went bad was being asked to do something out of spec.

There are, I think, six identical relays that drive six identical solenoid
valves. I can imagine the cold water valve gets used multiple times per
wash cycle (it does a bunch of tricky stuff to weigh the load by partially
filling the basket and then swiring it with the motor to measure inerta) so
that valve probably is cycled 6 - 10 times per wash load. But, if all the
valves and relays were identical, I would expect that additional failures
would have started showing up by now.

There are some bigger relays that operate heavier loads, no problem with
those so far.
It seems like there ought to be solid state replacements for common
mechanical relays. I've never had a failure of an SSR, and you can get
them with built in snubbers and zero-cross switching. One would think it
would be cheaper to mass produce SSRs vs mechanicals.
Yes, you WOULD think. But, I'll guess that some factory that is cranking
these things out can make them for a couple cents each. If properly
selected, about the only thing that will kill an SSR is lightning or a
shorted load.

Jon