So, what did I break?

[lingland]

So I pluged in a strand of C9's... well, 3 strands; 75 blubs in to one channel of my SSR, and now my SSR's channel outputs ON (120volts) always. (MY other 3 channels of this SSR board function properly)

(This board and all channels *did* work when I tested it originally with a simple "el cheapo" strand of lights...)

I haven't pulled my pcb yet to see what broke... Instead I simply stopped using this channel.

So my question is, can a load kill my SSR? If it breaks shouldn't it break to OFF (0v) and not ON? Am I safe to ignore the broken channel until I pull my stuff after xmas, or will this box now burn up in flames... if so I will move it closer to my neighbor's house instead of mine... :) )


Thanks
Rob

[Macrosill]

You probably burned up your triac. With 75 C9's you are drawing over 4 amps. Way to high without a super duper heatsink.

[cobraman44]

I have had the same issue. You have to replace the triac. I run 2 sets of C9's on several channels. It has always been one of the 8 amp triacs that I have had the issue with. I have sone 6 amp triacs and have never blown one. They must have better thermal properties.

[Sean Bowf]

When you have a large load like that, that you want to turn on at the same time, use more than one channel to control it. That way the load is shared between multiple channels, and not overloading one channel.

Sean

[andyhough]

I put my SSRs together last night, but I was worried about burning up the Triac. The pin is pretty large, and the solder did not flow from the opposite side without the traic heating up pretty good. How much heat is too much for them? When I clipped a heat sinc onto the mount rod, it did not help much.

Any ideas before I burn them all up?