The Best Quality 200-Amp Solenoid I Have Yet Seen

The WFCO inverter that Airstream put in my trailer is fused at 110 amps from the battery. I wanted a disconnect switch for it (it has an unGodly draw even when "off") so I got the Intellitec 200 amp unit. It is identical to the Intellitec 100 amp unit that Airstream used for the house disconnect, only heavier duty.

Have any experience with 'contactors'?

The colehersee 200 amp solenoid I installed was in someone else's rig and was feeding a Crown group 31 AGM battery, which did not have a CCA rating nor appear capable of accepting very high currents nor support high voltage during higher amperage discharge.

I do not personally use a solenoid but make use of manual switches, and with only one battery now, I pretty much never turn them.

Seen some rather robust winch solenoids, I guess one just could ignore the studs which reverse current to the winch:



Look easy enough to take apart and inspect the guts.

Blue $eas $ells $ome 250 amp continuou$ $olenoid$ that look pretty burly. Did I adequately imply they are not inexpensive?

The studs are metric of course and 5/16" ring terminals fit the studs easily and 1/4" ring terminals no-way-in-hell.

The Chinese are infamous fraudsters. The incredibly bright 18-watt CREE lamps use a voltage regulator but draw only 12.7 watts. The Chinese sellers are too stupid to realize the low watts are a bonus not a negative. Their 10-watt chips are horribly overdriven at 10 watts. Nine point nine volts is optimum. around seven watts.

Buy Mexican or USA from Amazon instead of eBay. If the solenoid arrives with quarter-inch studs cry FRAUD to Amazon and stop payment plus give one-star. VISA is wonderful about returning your money. eBay does not like the word FRAUD in a review. in fact, they get rather hysterical.

Thanks for the heads-up Landy. 200-amps constant duty is a lot of amps. In fact, I swap out steel carriage bolts for Silicon Bronze on high amperage Leece-Neville alternators. The negative terminal stud is STEEL is 1/4" x 20.

I query vendors all the time on eBay. If the answer is SORRY WE ONLY SELL it's time to move on. Chinese electrical is dangerous and insults the intelligence of even a low brow.

I tested my recommended six ways from Sunday before recommending it. Thirty seconds at 300 amperes had an average volt drop through the device of 1.18, and the studs had no great warming. I used the BORG both power supplies in tandem to boost the voltage of the group 31 Lifeline.

There is no way in hell a Ford type solenoid can compete with a legitimate solenoid larger Trombetta. The pull-in power is greater the break retraction force is greater and I had a five-yard dumpster right outside my window with lote of failed ford type "constant-duty" solenoids. I thought silver inlaid contacts would help. They didn't. The 11180 solenoids barely beat out the copper contacts ford TYPE solenoids. The only way to increase magnetic force without increasing ampere-turns is to Use a lower value Mu metal in the electromagnet. More laminations and it means a larger structure.

Try a GENUINE 200-amp constant duty Trombetta with 5/16" terminals and enjoy the benefits.

PS: Te difference between TYCO small relays and garbage Chinese counterfeits is just as large if not greater. The NINE Beijing wanna be's lasted a few months each driving the electric fan motor of the Spirit. The Tyco has lasted SIX YEARS. I purchased TWENTY Tycos and bequeathed a sackful of garbage on a local garage. Good riddance.

As I noted earlier if the Trombetta has a sticker MADE IN MEXICO or MADE IN USA the correct solenoid will have the metric equivalent 5/16" studs.

The eBay listing was shipped from China, not the Amazon.

My buddy purchased an extremely similar looking 200 amp solenoid.
When it arrived I was disappointed in the size of the main terminals. Fitting a 4gauge thick walled ring terminal on them, a very small portion of that would actually be passing the current and they are so close together than making tight fitting copper washers to slide over ~3/16 diameter studs to increase surface area would be kind of pointless.

I most recently employed
Cole Hersee 24213 12V 200A Continuous Solenoid, that claims to have silver tungsten carbide internal contacts.At least it has 5/16" studs that thick walled ring terminals did not completely dwarf.

No idea. Those marked Made In Mexico or USA I would trust. Send the Amazon vendor a message prior to buying, perhaps.

I still don't understand why one would re-import a Trombetta from China, seems a good way to get scammed with a nock-off.

A tip. The chattering of any type of solenoid will destroy it. The vastly increased arcing will eat stud plates and discs for lunch. Always verify adequate pull-in and maintain the voltage on the magnetic coil circuit. A Bosch Tyco relay uses milliamps of DC to hold the power contacts and the little relays will suffer a lot of abuse.

pauldub wrote:
I have a failed Trombetta. I don't think it lasted any longer than the cheapo one that Winnebago installed originally.

"Have"
You still have it

The model number?

Trombetta has some pretty light-duty solenoids that look like White-Rogers units rated to 100-amps. I posted the picture to avoid confusion using the Brand name. A picture of the failed unit would work fine :)

GordonThree wrote:
This one?

Trombetta Bear at Amazon

225 amp rating, cont. duty, made in USA. I like the plastic guard between the terminals, prevent excitement when working with live cables.

Yep ... that Trombetta 114-1211-020 model is what I installed in our Class C motorhome to switch it's battery bank into, or out of, the motorhome's 12 volt electrical system.

It's the solenoid in the 2nd line down of the chart in this .pdf. Mine is the silver contact version, which I think the "020" designates in the part number. Note it's 225 amp carry ("continuous") current spec and 600 amp peak inductive inrush current spec:
https://www.trombetta.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/bear-family.pdf