Gold Relays

I can't seem to find relays with gold contacts. Can anyone recomend any of these that Digikey or mouser carry?

If you are switching low level audio, get the bifulcrated contacts. They resist oxide builup on the contacts longer.

Yes, bifurcated contacts (which just means split into two side-by-side contacts) improve reliability through redundancy.

Generally, if a relay contact current rating is fairly low, it is apt to have gold contacts as a matter of course. When you get into switching many amps things migrate to silver, usually. Silver is bad for low-voltage (so-called "dry") contact applications since the sulphide is not a good conductor. If you are switching mains-like voltages this doesn't matter as the field strength is high enough to reach through the barrier, but at a few volts or less it's a pure hell of intermittency.

Axicom makes some bifurcated, gold covered contact types that I have been using.

http://www.mouser.com/catalog/622/1139.pdf

thanks everyone.

somehow they passed me by