Quote Originally Posted by Triathlete View Post
yes you can fry a solonoid. I changed plenty of them that had gone bad when I was an aircraft electrician. But I would check the ground and wiring first.
x2, only on an aircraft carrier in the power plant.

A solenoid is nothing more than a coil of wire, a moveable metal core and stationary core and a spring. ALL current flow creates a magnetic field.(Thats how a junkyard crane works) When current flows through the coil (when you close the switch, push button etc...) it creates a magnetic field that is enough to overcome the spring and move the moveable core as it is attracted to the fixed core, and voila, that is connected to a pin or whatever and you just opened your trunk or whatnot. When current stops, the spring pushes/pulls the pin back to original position.
This happens to be what I teach here at the Naval Nuclear Power School.
Sorry to thread jack, but blowing a solenoid happens all the time, too much current or heat, friction from the moveable and so on will quickly burn up the coil. The best way to check, use am ammeter (has to be in series across the switch, so that the ammeter becomes the switch, if there is current flow, then it isn't a wiring problem, its the solenoid, if no current, then it could be a wiring/ground problem, or the coil got hot enough that there is an open. Next would be to check resistance, shouldn't be too high, after all, it is just a coil of wire, I would think a couple hundred ohms or so. Just a thought.