Vacuum contactor for high-cycle motor switching
The 3RT1265-6AP36: Vacuum interrupters suppress the arc inside a sealed bottle, so the contact tips don't erode the way open-air contacts do — that's why the mechanical endurance is listed at 10,000,000 typical operations and the max switching rate hits 750 cycles per hour in AC-3 duty. For a line that cycles a conveyor or a pump every few seconds, that matters.
Coil voltage and pick-up tolerance
That means on a nominal 230 V line the contactor pulls in reliably at 184 V and holds in up to 264 V — useful when the panel sits at the end of a long feeder where voltage sag is a known issue. For the main circuit, stranded copper from 70 mm² up to 240 mm² — that's a big cable, sized for the full current rating of the S10 frame.
Mounting and enclosure fit
Fastening is by screw fixing through a single 11 mm-diameter hole. Physical envelope: 210 mm high, 145 mm wide, 206 mm deep.
Operating conditions and thermal limits
The arcing time is 10-15 ms, and the opening time at both AC and DC is 40-80 ms. Switching rates vary by duty: AC-1 and AC-3 max out at 750 operations per hour, while AC-2 and AC-4 are limited to 250 per hour — the difference reflects the severity of the breaking arc under inductive vs resistive loads.