this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2025
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That box on the far right L12401 is just a fuse holder not a timer. It's just there to provide protection for the contactor coil. As far as the contactor goes it is hard to tell what is going on just from the pic. It looks like A1 is tied to neutral with the white wires and A2 looks like it is linked to the fuse on the right through the orange wire. If that is the case then that should provide your 240V coil power if the fuse isn't blown. If you get 230V between A2 and neutral then that should be right. Check your voltage between A1 and neutral to see if that is tied to neutral.
I can't find any info on that specific contactor in english but if I had to guess I'd say that it just reads the ripple control from the power company internally. If it's acting up then it could have missed the ripple control signal when it was sent or it could just be failing. Does it work if you switch it out of auto mode?
I believe the contactor is just a contactor, and the actual power company signal comes from a separate device. Though everything is french, as it seems this setup is used for cheap water heating in France.
I guess the part that is throwing me is the switch. I'm not seeing any other signal wires going to it though (other than the A1 and A2 coil wires) so whatever logic it is doing for that "auto" setting must all be done internally. That switch is what made me think that maybe it reads ripple control signals because I know that is done in a lot of areas for using electricity off peak hours. But if it does read ripple control then it looks way different than any other ripple control switch I have ever seen because you're right, it does just look like a normal contactor other than that switch. I guess maybe it could also just have a built in timer like an old school freezer defrost timer module.