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Re:Making traditional light switches smart by hoofhearted on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @10:06PM (#31268524)
This shouldn’t happen in theory in a properly engineered and built system. The switches have arc chutes inside of them already, and the contacts are spring loaded to open and close as fast as possible to minimize. On the motor end, the maximum amount of amperage a motor pulls is called the Locked Rotor Current. You can achieve LRC by stopping a running motor with a screwdriver. But a motor also hits LRC for a brief second every time it starts from a rest state. So a UL rated motor sees maximum amperage all the time in its normal lifecycle.
Re:Making traditional light switches smart by johnwalkr on Friday May 06, 2022 @07:45AM (#31283992)
Alternating current helps too. That’s why many switches have no DC rating or much lower DC rating compared to AC. A common mistake of hobbyists is to undersize a switch for a DC circuit based on its AC rating.