clamping diodes

any ifo on how to set up a clamping diode using 1n4004 and a zener diode. I was reading that the zener can speed up and prevent tacking of the contacts which could reduce the life of the relay. how much life reduction has been noticed if any. is this just theory? I want the most reliable method possible. what i saw was that a simple reverse biased diode across the coil can lead to the contacts even bouncing together. Granted stopping the massive voltage spike but decreasing the life of the contacts. any thoughts?The RIGHT way is the ONLY way.

In practice a diode across the coil contacts should STOP bounce, surely the zener diode is only there fore voltage regulation, come on in Oldspark, Dualsport etc.

if you have never had any reliability issues then i am not gonna worry about it. I try and make relays easy to get to but sometimes not practical and wanted to make it perfect.The RIGHT way is the ONLY way.

AS a point of interest, German* made Bosch, US made Honeywell and Amp/Tycho and Japanese Omron and Panasonic are rated for 15 million + cycles. *Current Bosch are apparently Chinese and not so good.

15 million should do it i would think. i might have to switch my supplier.The RIGHT way is the ONLY way.

The zenor shouldn't be required - and a series resistor is required for that. The only other possibility would be to clamp the +ve voltage spike (not the reverse or -ve spike), but how often is that done? (at the relay). Sorry for my slowness - we've been snorkling with the rays....

rescue diver myself so understand the whole snorkeling thing. so in your opinion best practices would just be the 1n4004 across the coil and call it a day?The RIGHT way is the ONLY way.

Yep - any 1N400x.

thanks everybodyThe RIGHT way is the ONLY way.