In order to prevent the arcing from destroying my relay contacts, I switched to driving the magnet using a TIP36C that in turn was grounded via the relay instead. That way, the high current is switched by the transistor, so there's no possibility of arcing, while the relay still allows me to control the 50V coil via my 25V driver FET. I mounted the TIP36 on a small bracket made from left over aluminum to act as a heat sink.
With this, the magnet functioned properly, no more locking on, but it also somehow managed to blow my 50V supply's fuse. Even upping it all the way to a 10A slow blow didn't help; I couldn't energize the magnet for more than 1 second. I think this must have something to do with the caps on my voltage doubler, as the lower rated fast blow fuse directly powering the magnet isn't blowing...
Regardless, none of this seems to matter since the magnet still can't grab the ball from the orbit very well. Even with, a medium speed ball thrown by hand, the magnet seems to have almost no effect, let alone being able to grab it. At this point, seeing how bad even 50V is suited for this task, I'm going to stop bothering with this approach for now, and just install a diverter of some kind, as I can't see any of my other ideas improving on it enough for this to be a reliable function in the game. I'm hoping to have at least one multiball be all upper flipper based, inspired by classic lawlor layouts, so having a reliable way to feed the side flipper is a must...
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