For detection of a magnetic field, reed switches are most often used. Their design is really simple: contacts are placed in a hermetically sealed glass bubble – the presence of a magnet causes one of the contacts to move and to close the circuit. Both reed switches and reed relays related to them take advantage of this technology. Thanks to the tight sealing and the small distance between the contacts, these components have a great longevity and work very fast. Their semiconductor equivalent are magnetoresistive sensors, in which the resistances changes depending on the strength of the magnetic field.All of the aforementioned solutions – widely applied in industry as well as in everyday use devices – are made with the use of elaborate and precise manufacturing processes. That is why suppliers of reed switches, reed relays, and similar products are usually highly specialised companies. One of such manufacturers is Coto Technology, whose solutions are the newest addition to TME’s catalogue.
The brand and range of Coto Technology products
Coto Technology is an American company that has been operating for more than 100 years. It offers, among other things, semiconductor magnetic field sensors and many products based on reed switches. Below, you can see the manufacturer’s first products in our offer. We invite you to read the text and browse through the range of these products in our catalogue:
Reed relays
The reed relays have plenty of assets – great longevity, fast switching, and tightness. They can work in high voltage circuits (for Coto Technology components it is up to 3.5kV AC or 7.5kV DC). The only downside, when compared to the electromagnetic solutions, is lower maximum current, which can’t exceed 5A in the case of this range of products. To protect the contacts from the influence of outside magnetic radiation, the casings of the relays are made out of stainless steel and they act as a screen. Coto Technology products are available in many sizes – with the length from 9.77mm to 71.12mm. They are also available in variants for through-hole mounting with a pin pitch from 1.02mm to 5.08mm (also in single-row SIP packages) .
COTO reed relays are closed in a steel package.
These components are characterised by low contact resistance, even 80mΩ. The devices can be controlled by voltage from 5V to 24V DC, while the coil resistance is from 110Ω to 1.5kV. It is also worth mentioning that all Coto Technology relays are factory-tested individually, which significantly lowers the possibility of the occurrence of defective products.
Magnetic sensors
Coto Technology magnetic sensors are miniature components designed for surface mounting (SMD). They have a linear voltage characteristic (magnetoresistive operation). They are perfect for all kinds of devices: medical, consumer and industrial ones, and even for circuits used in the automotive industry. They can be easily adapted to operate in logic circuits and in common instruments such as tachometers, proximity sensors, liquid level sensor, open/close sensors and many more. Since their average power consumption doesn’t exceed 1µA with the power supply from 1.7V to 5.5V (selected models), they will work great with mobile applications, for example those related to IoT.
The range of Coto Technology sensors available from the TME’s catalogue includes components that are designed to work with frequencies up to 10kHz, these components are unipolar, bipolar and omnipolar. Additionally, they have an excellent thermal tolerance – from -40°C to 85°C.
Reed switches Standard reed switches by Coto Technology are adapted to work with a voltage of up to 200V DC and 140V AC, and the maximum switched power equals 5W or 10W (depending on the model). These are components with normally open contacts (SPST-NO), adapted for automated installation in SMT processes. They are known for their hard casing and great longevity.
The original source of text: https://www.tme.eu/en/news/library-articles/page/44392/reed-switches-relays-and-sensors-from-coto-technology/
