eBay CJX2 industrial contactor teardown.

Here's a general purpose eBay search link:-

If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.

[StreuB]

Just to note. The #14 NO is the NO held closed for the stop loop of a latching circuit for a 2-wire start/stop. The coil wire would be looped through that contact and a NC pushbutton which is the stop button.

[heavydiesel]

Used to work on some Irish made ice builder systems that used Omega (or similar name) branded contactors, found to our cost they would randomly stick in, the ice builder used the same condensing units as a milk cooling tank which had priority for the units, someone had used a spare terminal on the contactor to join a couple of wires, one night while making ice the milk tank called for cooling, this contactor didn't drop out and the two cooling signals being on at once caused a latching effect which froze the milk and sheared the paddles off the stirring motors!

[Yes-ngrf]

Hi BC, the "shunts" you mention are called shading rings and they create a second magnetic pole that is out of phase with the main pole to hold the iron circuit closed as the control voltage passes thru the zero crossing. :)

[kurieren]

I worked at an electrical supply house for some time while at school; there's some very cool capacitor switching accessories for all of the contactors used to deal with. Essentially, it would switch a smaller module that was in parallel with the contactor with a high value resistor in circuit a few milliseconds before switching the actual contactor, which would trickle some current into the capacitors; in turn helping with the inrush that you were discussing.

[shanemadden]

You know after watching you for a bit, I found my love back for electronics and making my own diy projects. Thank you. Right now I’m working on a digital/analog (red and blue leds).

[achillies]

That looks to be a very good copy of an older Telemecanique contactor. I have put in many different contactors in my time. There are many different brands but they all look pretty much the same inside.
Keep up the AWESOME work Clive.

[D.TSlave]

6 years later and still helped me out when it tripped, disassembling it was easy thanks to your video

[HawkBlack]

It seems Clive is a never ending encyclopedia of awesome electronic goodness. You sir need the electrical industry's equivalent of a Emmy Award...or two.

[Roy_Tellason]

Talking about a factory when the machinery stops, reminds me of a service call I did some years back. This company was into making "filtration" products, and the input to the machine in question was big rolls of paper, which the machine was supposed to punch large discs out of. The paper production was continuing, and they were running out of places to put it. The controlling hardware on the machine was two boards full of 4000-series CMOS parts, and apparently some power supply issue had taken out a number of chips. The "fixer" on site couldn't quite seem to get a handle on the situation. There was a spare set of boards but they were of a different revision and both needed to be swapped out at once or it wouldn't work. We didn't find that out until the folks showed up who made the machine. I found a bad sensor whose wire ran inside the same conduit as some 220V power, which was probably why it failed and on replacing it they insisted that it be done the same way that it was, so I'm thinking that it didn't last. Perhaps some transient suppression on that particular input would have helped? I remember the guy's jaw dropping when I sketched out a simple crowbar circuit that could be put between the power supply and the machine to protect the boards in the event of future power supply issues. Two of us outside guys plus the factory guy plus the reps from the machine maker and after a couple of days it still wasn't up and running, management was not thrilled...

[keithpattison]

When I worked for a major Australian power company, our industrial service techs were told by their leaders (young people, straight out of Uni, with no real world experience), that they wern't allowed to fault find control equipment with the panel live. These were industrial application gas burner controls, sometimes quite complex and the only way of fault finding, in most cases, you needed power on. We have RS Components here in Aust. and they are very good to deal with.

[Bob]

Something I learned as a young man was to always listen to those with experience. Clive, Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.

[SueBobChicVid]

Sometimes the quality control is lacking in the little things - like the springs. Springy metal doesn't "just happen" due to the shape. It takes good design and consistent production (heat treating) methods. Spring today... flimsy (or broken) piece of wire tomorrow.

[AM-yjyc]

I've started finding the phrase "take it to bits" slipping into my everyday conversations inadvertently. Also been getting urges to just starting take random things apart just to see them.

[Broken-Silencer]

Do you know, Clive, I've been following your channel for over a year now. I went back over some older ones and was surprised how much I'd managed to soak in. So thanks for the education mate.

[carlovani]

Looks like a clone from a telemecanique contactor, even the colours are right. It would be interesting to see them side by side teared down.

[simonthechipmunkCC]

Also keep the contactor rating for inductive loads in mind. At a public transportation company we replaced contactors which were used to switch the sodium-vapor lamps at the tram stops. Turns out their combined ballast load was too much for continuous operation and the arcs jumping across the contacts had burned them away over time. There was nothing left of the contact plates.

[Yes-ngrf]

With regards to selecting the right contactor for a type of load, figures are stated on them AC1 is it's purely resistive rating. AC2 is for wound rotor and secondary resistance motors. AC3 is for starting and running squirrel cage motors (normal duty). AC4 is for inching and or plugging squirrel cage motors (considered severe duty). AC-6a is for switching transformers and other low impedance high inrush loads. And our old friend AC-6b is the capacitive rating usually reserved for switching capacitor banks for power factor correction, and it generally involves early make late break parallel contacts and big wire wound resistors to extend the contact life. For things like car park lighting go with the AC4 rating. PS I use those contactors that you tore down today in older machinery all the time, never had a problem with them, the reason for using them is not the cost, it's because they are exact copies of the old Telemanique contactors that are no longer produced so they fit all the existing mechanical interlocks, and auxiliary contacts, and motor overloads, straight swap and all the electrical and mechanical safety interlocks are maintained, proper job. Cheers, Michael.

[wimwiddershins]

Free education with Big Clive.
Thanks Clive, you are great.

[paulgascoigne]

I love using relays. There's something rather satisfying about the click. Very useful too when you only want to use a small switching voltage to activate larger loads, you could easily make a Hive style Internet heating system for a fraction of the costs, in the £20-30 range instead of £200+

[TonnyCassidy]

this contactor have better overall quality than any contactor i have ever used in my life (ABB, Schneider, Mitsubishi, fuji electric etc)