Relay burning after some comutations

Hi,

You need to realise that you have bought a fully clad board of copper, and you are paying someone to remove it.
So try to keep as much of YOUR copper on YOUR board.

Those tracks are way to thin, at least double the thickness where possible.
You have acess to a silk screen overlay, use it to label sockets, transisitors and terminals.
Provide test points on the PCB so you can quickly check, power supply, any of the controller outputs or inputs with a DMM.
If this is your first try at a PCB, it not bad, but needs some refining.

As has been pointed out many times, lowside switch your relays.

This could be why you are killing relays;
You are not providing enough current to keep the contacts closed with any decent pressure.
The contacts are probably self wiping, which means when you close them the contact surfaces rub together to keep them clean.
If they get dirty with arcing products, the wiping clears them, to keep low contact resistance.

This relies on some over travel from the relay coil.
If you have not got enough current flowing through your relay coil you will not get the over travel.

So no cleaning, high contact resistance, over heating and failure.

Tom... :slight_smile: