> What in the heck makes a solenoid plunger stick in the down position?
> I pushed on it pretty hard, but it wouldn't budge.
Most likely, a hard piece of crud (bit of gravel or something) has found
it's way inside the solenoid and is jammed between the plunger and the
housing.
> Secondly, with it stuck in the down position, did I pretty much
> fry the "pull" circuit that requires high amps?
> Would that cause the constant ground?
When the pull-in coil is working properly, it will appear as a constant
ground. The pull-in coil's resistance is under 1 ohm I believe. Depending
on what kind of test instrument you're using to detect the ground, even the
holding coil may appear as a ground, as it's resistance is only around 10
ohms or so.
Although your 'ground' test doesn't prove it, my guess is that the pull-in
coil (or it's contacts) are fried.
> I'm pretty pissed.
> That was new solenoid, and those things aren't cheap.
In order to prevent this, I added an in-line fuse to my solenoid. A
"slo-blo" fuse will only carry the pull-in current for a few seconds, then
it will blow before the pull-in coil can overheat. I used a MDL-8 fuse,
just because that's what I had on hand; an MDL-3 would probably work. Now,
if the pull-in contacts don't open for some reason, the fuse will blow and I
get a chance to fix the problem with the solenoid.
Randall
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