SSR keeps melting.

[gah]

I second the last posters comments about reliability. You are absorbing 12V and up to the power supplies max amperage into the device. I have a Fotek DC-DC with a 30A rating that has been running for 2 years since I burned up the originally supplied relay. Suggest Amazon rather than E-Bay - more accountability from the supplier if you do see a failure.

[voltatek]

Use a current measurement device (ampmeter) to see how much current is travelling through the Solid State Relay. That will help you determine the relay size needed.

And, if you don't want to burn your house down, I strongly suggest to use a circuit breaker to protect your wiring and relay. See your local electrical code.

[kd7eir]

An excellent post with critical safety recommendations.

Use a current measurement device (ampmeter) to see how much current is travelling through the Solid State Relay. That will help you determine the relay size needed.

And, if you don't want to burn your house down, I strongly suggest to use a circuit breaker to protect your wiring and relay. See your local electrical code.

[Jhlewis10]

Going to piggy back on this thread, the terminals on my included relay board melted. I want to order a new one but what about those two small wires on the original that went to D8?

[printbus]

Going to piggy back on this thread, the terminals on my included relay board melted. I want to order a new one but what about those two small wires on the original that went to D8?

What is it that you want to know? The small wires are what controls the relay, using the D8 output of RAMPS or equivalent. A replacement relay board from MakerFarm comes with those small wires pre-attached.

If you are going to replace the relay board with something other than a MakerFarm board, you'd run wires from whatever the control pins are on the new relay or SSR to those same D8 terminals.

[Jhlewis10]

Makerfarm has been sold out of their relays for months.

The SSR I see online look like they only have 4 pins out, vs 4 on the Makerfarm relay with 2 additional control wires on the board.

So I double up the 4 wires on one side for the bed and Pwr supply and use the other side for the control wires?

[printbus]

...The SSR I see online look like they only have 4 pins out, vs 4 on the Makerfarm relay with 2 additional control wires on the board.

So I double up the 4 wires on one side for the bed and Pwr supply and use the other side for the control wires?

Ah, OK. The SSR will have two switched contacts and two control pins. The MakerFarm relay board as two terminals that are switched through the relay, the two small wires that are the control pins, and two additional terminals that are just shorted together. To move from a MakerFarm relay board to a SSR, one wire from your power supply to the bed would pass through the SSR, and the other wire from the power supply would go directly to the bed, without passing through the SSR. Edit: and RAMPS D8 would connect to the control pins on the SSR (watch the polarity).

I assume only one of the two terminal blocks was damaged on your relay board. If so, which one and how bad is the circuit board? If the board isn't in bad shape and the damaged terminal block does not have traces going to the relay, just splice those two wires together. If the damage is at the terminal block with traces going to the relay, you could consider unsoldering both terminal blocks and reinstalling the good one at the location with traces going to the relay. Then the other two wires would be just spliced together.

[Jhlewis10]

Two of the connectors were melted, I removed both and direct soldered everything back in place, but during reinstall I cracked one of the solders joints due to it being brittle, and me being crappy at soldering.

So I am ordering an SSR, heatsink, and silicone covered 12 awg wire and starting over.

Thanks for the tips, I will post a mock up when I get it.