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Bottom line...
From what I can tell it doesn't matter and you don't need one, so it's not worth worrying about too much.
An economizer's job, far as I can tell, is to reduce the load on the coil that actuates the contactor. As in, it's hard to pull the switch shut, but after you do, it doesn't take as much power to hold it shut, so you might as well back off a bit.
The entire benefit would be to slightly reduce the energy wasted holding the contactor closed, and maybe reduce heat. If you skip it, you'll lose, I dunno, a few watts? At worst it'll be like a very small lightbulb left on?
On the bad side, anything you do to taper off the power, means you might slow down how fast the contactor moves, which means more arcing and worse contact life. So it seems to me that you're better off using no economizer than one poorly designed.
If the contact was designed to need an economizer (i.e. I cannot withstand a current that doesn't back off once it's closed), that would be odd, but, maybe there are some out there.
http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/evdl-coil-economizer-13711.html <-- Does this help?
...
Is that what you're talking about, or are you talking about flyback diodes to prevent the contactor terminals from arcing when they're disconnected and the motor's still spinning?
From what I can tell it doesn't matter and you don't need one, so it's not worth worrying about too much.
An economizer's job, far as I can tell, is to reduce the load on the coil that actuates the contactor. As in, it's hard to pull the switch shut, but after you do, it doesn't take as much power to hold it shut, so you might as well back off a bit.
The entire benefit would be to slightly reduce the energy wasted holding the contactor closed, and maybe reduce heat. If you skip it, you'll lose, I dunno, a few watts? At worst it'll be like a very small lightbulb left on?
On the bad side, anything you do to taper off the power, means you might slow down how fast the contactor moves, which means more arcing and worse contact life. So it seems to me that you're better off using no economizer than one poorly designed.
If the contact was designed to need an economizer (i.e. I cannot withstand a current that doesn't back off once it's closed), that would be odd, but, maybe there are some out there.
http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/evdl-coil-economizer-13711.html <-- Does this help?
...
Is that what you're talking about, or are you talking about flyback diodes to prevent the contactor terminals from arcing when they're disconnected and the motor's still spinning?
