Thanks for the reply Russ,
Still getting my head around this, I may have even had the snubber diode the wrong way round as well. I think I'm getting it but just seems wrong to put power into a pin labeled as an output.
I,m not saying you guys are wrong, no way!, I'm saying it's wrong/misleading that Panasonic calls pin 26 "servo alarm output" but what it really does is provide a ground for completing the circuit. In this hillbillies mind you don't put power into an output,
, I guess it's because I didn't know about or understand this "sinking" & "sourcing" stuff.
When I put the diode across the relay I had it reversed biased for power to come out of the output, apparently power flows the other way so diode was forward biased. I know it's wrong now, but still seems right to me that power should come OUT of a pin labeled output, not go IN.
Rick