23 Mar
2006
23 Mar
'06
3:59 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at blazenet.net>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 6:47 PM
Subject: Re: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus)
so
On Thursday 23 March 2006 04:21 pm, Jim Beacon wrote:
> From: "Scott Quinn" <compoobah at valleyimplants.com>
>
> It is also often used in high speed relays, especially for teleprinter
type
> circuits - we had some mainframe / telegraph
interfaces with mercury
wetted
relays in
them, in operation, until about 8 years ago
I have a mercury-wetted relay I salvaged out of something or other. Says right on it. :-) It also indicates that it should
be used in one
specific
physical orientation, too.
So the advantage of those is speed?
I believe (correct me if I am wrong) that a mercury relay is faster then
other mechanical type relays (the ones I used were for switching decent
sized resistive loads), but much slower then solid state relays for doing
the same thing (but the SSR have problems dissipating heat and need to be
actively cooled).