POWER RELAYS

By: Engr. Dano & Engr. Tadifa

What is a power relay?

A power relay is a switch which uses an

electromagnetic coil in order to close or open a circuit.
Power relays also contain an armature, a spring and one
or several contacts. If the power relay is designed to
normally be open, when power is applied, the
electromagnet attracts the armature, which is then pulled in
the coil’s direction until it reaches a contact, therefore
closing the circuit. If the relay is designed to be normally
closed, the electromagnetic coil pulls the armature away
from the contact, therefore opening the circuit.
TYPES OF POWER RELAYS
 The NO Normally-Open SPST (Single Pole Single
Throw) relay has an opened circuit state when no current is
applied to its coil so basically it disconnects the power to the
load in the inactive state. When current is applied to its coil
the generated magnetic field switches the armature and
closes the contact so you can say that it turned ON the load
(fan, light bulb, etc).
 It has one common terminal and 2 contacts in 2
different configurations: one can be Normally Closed and the
other one is opened or it can be Normally Open and the other
one closed. So basically you can see the SPDT relay as a way
of switching between 2 circuits: when there is no voltage
applied to the coil one circuit “receives” current, the other one
doesn’t and when the coil gets energised the opposite is
happening.
 DPST
(DOUBLE POLE SINGLE THROW)
The Double Pole Single Throw DPST relay is the equivalent of 2
SPST switches (NO Normally Open and NC Normaly Closed)
and can be used to switch 2 different loads.
We have 2 scenarios depending on the type of relay
without voltage on coil:
 with a NO the loads will be OFF because the current cannot flow
 with a NC the loads will be ON because the current can flow
with voltage on coil:
 with a NO the loads will be ON because the current can flow
 with a NC the loads will be OFF because the current cannot flow
 DPDT
(DOUBLE POLE DOUBLE THROW)

The DPDT relay (Double Pole Double Throw) is

quite interesting and can be used in various
scenarious, including for changing the direction of a
motor as you can see in the picture below. It has 2
terminals and 4 connectors and you can look at the
DPDT relay as the equivalent of 2 Single Pole Double
Throw SPDT relays.
Change motor direction with DPDT
relay
 Without voltage applied to the coil the battery plus is
connected to contact 1 (and 4) and minus to 3 (and 2) therefore
the motor is turning in one direction (let’s say clockwise). When
voltage is applied to the coil then the relay switches and now T1
(plus) is connected to contact 2 (and 3) and T2 (minus) is connected
to 4 (and 1) therefore the motor is changing the direction of
rotation.
Switch between 2 different Loads
with DPDT switch
 In this second application we can use the DPDT switch to
choose between 2 different load and have a visual indication of
what load is connected. In our case (figure 1) when there is no
voltage applied to the coil the fan and green LED are turned ON .
When we apply voltage to the coil (figure 2) the relay switches its
contacts and now the light buld and red LED are turned ON.