Occasionally we get calls about controlling an unusual voltage with our RIB® relays. Finding a relay with oddball voltages can be incredibly difficult. It becomes especially challenging if you want it prepackaged with transient suppression and an LED indicator. Voltages could be 5V Transistor-Transistor Logic (TTL) signals from computers or microprocessors, 18V for renewable energy applications or 16.4V for railroads. But what if it got more difficult? What if the 16.4V power supply for your railroad application could only handle 190 mA and you are already using 150mA? Adding a relay (if you can find a 16.4V relay) that pulls 25mA would put you at 175mA. While that is still below 190mA, what if the relay coil has inrush and damages the power supply?Optoisolated RIB® Relays
Let Functional Devices solve all your problems with our Low-Input Optoisolated RIB® Relays! These relays are controlled with either an AC or DC voltage ranging from 5V to 25V. This means there's a relay to handle your 5V TTL signal, your 18V renewable energy device and your 16.4V railroad application. Our optoisolated RIB® relays range from drawing 0.4mA at 5V to drawing 3mA at 24V, so you don't have to worry about bogging down a pre-existing power supply. Depending on the model you choose, you could control up to 20A at 277V, 16A Electronic Ballast at 277V or 3HP at 600V, with a 5V signal from your computer! Be honest... how cool is that?
Our optoisolated RIB® relays require a continuous voltage to operate. Most of the time the model is chosen by the load voltage (usually 120V, 240V or 277V) and can be tapped off that supply. However, it could also be 10-30V from a controller or transformer. A few models even have an HOA switch for overriding capabilities.
Next time you have an application with an obscure voltage, think of RIB®. As always if you have any questions about our products or what you should use for your applications, give our Tech Support team a call or send us an email.