Using salvaged relays for 110vac controls

Other Hardware General Electronics
1

I have a few relays that I've salvaged from appliance control boards. The electrical specs look good (12vdc coil, switch supports up to 20A@230vac), but the legs on the bottom are TINY. I want to control an air compressor (owner's manual calls for a 15A branch circuit, so my relay should work, right?) but the wires on the compressor itself are much larger than these little pins on my relays.

  1. Am I missing something? Why are the pins so small?

  2. How do I attach the tiny pin to giant stranded wire? (12ga, I think. I'll check on that.) The pins are flat, so I don't think they'll fit into a perfboard.

Tim

2

OK, forget the air compressor then. I have lots of other small 110vac motors I'd like to control (in the 2-3A range). So in the case that the relay is sufficient for the load- how would I attach the wires?

If I can't find a way to mount the relay by its legs, I'm OK with just soldering wires onto the pins. I have just never seen a writeup on how to do this properly.

Thanks for reading. I think I have a 24vac transformer and contactor out of an HVAC unit, I can rig it up to run the compressor if need be.

3

That's perfect, thanks! I'll post a writeup on my project when it's reasonably ready.

Tim