past year spikes

[copperhead47]

hey guys and gals- this year we used spikes form the past 4 years (thats how old we are) in the past years we havent had much call for spikes so the relays jsut sat on a top shelf somewhere collecting dust. but this year we figure we would use the old spike first and save the newer ones for later. big mistake. 2 spikes went bad already. but heres the catch- its not the same position on the board that went bad. so it cannot be the load we are putting across it. my assumption tells me that its the spike itself. but last night we were running the machine for a long while and today the one spike that "went bad" is fine today, i guess it could be a loose signal contact. i dont know. really my question is if other teams have ran into this problem before. if they used older relays and had them go bad. thanks boys and girls!

ps- all the fuses on the spikes that went bad werent tripped