OK it might not be a great photo, or your predilection for little red lights might not get you jumping with glee when you see them. But that little fella (or fellaess) in the photo means that I've installed the VSR correctly. For those of you that are familiar with electronic acronyms. Let me explain.
On Pixie we have two set of batteries, one set of house batteries, for running the day to day stuff, like instruments, lights, water pumps etc. and the second battery is for starting the engine. Because we need an engine, which as well as propelling the boat it also charges both sets of batteries, we have that battery on a separate system so we should always have enough power in the battery to start the engine.
So why am I getting excited about a little red light? I'm coming to that. The VSR stands for Voltage Sensitive Relay, but that not really important. If I could explain what it means I'd try, all I know is that behind those grey plastic bits something clever is going on.
What the VSR does, is to take the charge from the engine, and recharge the engine battery first. When the engine battery has reached full, the VSR then stops charging that battery and charges the main house batteries instead. The little red light is telling the world (well me, and I'm telling you) that the engine battery is charged and sitting pretty at 13.7 volts.
To be honest the instructions that came with the VSR were poor, very poor, so poor it didn't mention the little red light at all, poor thing. It was only by having a chat to the nice people at Merlin Electronics that I got to find out what I should have wired where. So I went back and wired what I should, and then when I saw it, the little red light!
Well it made me happy at least
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