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Contactor questions



I just bought a couple of 3-phase, 3-pole, open-type AC reversing motor 
contactors at a hamfest yesterday and I have some questions. The box 
says that the contactor is rated for 27A continuous use.  Since each 
contactor has two relays and each relay has three contacts, does this 
mean that I could wire everything up in parallel and be good to go for 
up to 3 * 2 * 27A, or is the 27A rating for each relay rather than each 
contact?

Also, the connection diagram is a little confusing and I haven't had time 
to play with it yet, but I'm assuming that I CAN wire it so both relays can 
be energized simultaneously and give me simultaneous parallel switch 
closures?  How should I wire things up for 120V or 240V operation?  
Since 120V only has one hot line, can I run the one hot wire through the 
relay (which would give me 6 parallel relay contacts to use), or should I 
run both the hot and neutral line through (esentially one relay per line)? 
 Presumably with 240V, I should also run both hot wires through the 
relays?


Steven Roys (sroys-at-radiology.ab.umd.edu)