# Zilla snubber diode wiring question



## major (Apr 4, 2008)

jtgreeson said:


> I'm in the middle of hooking up my Zilla Z1K-LV. The manual says to wire the snubber diode across the coil connection. Where is this done? The easiest would be right on the Hairball, pins 25 & 26, where the main contactor terminals are. Is it ok to put it there or must it be placed at the contactor? I'm using a Kilovac EV200AAANA contactor and would have to cut the wires to splice in the diode. Thanks for any help.


Hi jt,

That Kilovac has the economizer. I don't think you should use the diode with it. Maybe Mike or someone else will confirm this.

Regards,

major


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

I do want to point out that the Zilla doesn't use a regular diode as a coil snubber. I know that is what the manual call it, but it is a bidirectional diode that is (basically) a 2 zener diodes in series in opposite directions. Using a regular coil diode instead can still damage the driver circuit in the hairball. 

The 1.5KE24CA-T that Cafe Electric supplies for the contactor coils has a breakdown voltage of 20.5 volts. It should be unused with that contactor, but also harmless if wired in as shown in the Zilla instructions. I would recommend including it, the Zilla manual has at least two warnings to do so. I don't see any reason it cannot be installed at the hairball.


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## jtgreeson (Aug 14, 2009)

Thank you Major and EVfun. That clears up a lot. I also got a email response from Dave at EVComponents. With this input so far here's what I plan to do: Run two wires from the contactor to pins 1 and 5 on the Hairball. (Pin 1 is chassis ground, pin 5 is positive voltage output to contactor.) I'll jumper the "diode" between these pins right on the Hairball.


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

jtgreeson said:


> Thank you Major and EVfun. That clears up a lot. I also got a email response from Dave at EVComponents. With this input so far here's what I plan to do: Run two wires from the contactor to pins 1 and 5 on the Hairball. (Pin 1 is chassis ground, pin 5 is positive voltage output to contactor.) I'll jumper the "diode" between these pins right on the Hairball.


Which leaves me with one question for either Cafe Electric or EV Components... Why isn't the snubber installed on the circuit board inside the hairball? This is a regularly asked question and not a rare installer mistake.


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## evsource (Mar 23, 2009)

jtgreeson said:


> I'm in the middle of hooking up my Zilla Z1K-LV. The manual says to wire the snubber diode across the coil connection. Where is this done? The easiest would be right on the Hairball, pins 1 & 5, where the main contactor coil terminals are. Is it ok to put it there or must it be placed at the contactor? I'm using a Kilovac EV200AAANA contactor and would have to cut the wires to splice in the diode. Thanks for any help.


The EV200 contactor won't need the snubber diode, at least a single unit. The coil economizer will reduce or eliminate the damaging voltage spikes.

However, it won't hurt to use the diode. You can install it just as you mentioned.

-Ryan


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## evsource (Mar 23, 2009)

evsource said:


> The EV200 contactor won't need the snubber diode, at least a single unit. The coil economizer will reduce or eliminate the damaging voltage spikes.
> 
> However, it won't hurt to use the diode. You can install it just as you mentioned.
> 
> -Ryan


Oops, for some reason when I went to the thread, it didn't show any responses (or it's just late in the afternoon and I'm not seeing clearly!). Confirmation never hurts though.


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## jtgreeson (Aug 14, 2009)

Thanks evsourse. That's what I did, just put it on the hairball. 

Off thread note: after hooking everything up it all worked except for intermittent light output when using the shorting plug and no output to the PC at all. So I wasn't able to program any parameters. Great response from EV Components where I bought it and I've returned it for testing. I hope it wasn't me that made an error.


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