I want to be able to disconnect my voltage sensitive relay so that I can prioritise charging the leisure battery when I want to (my relay works both ways)
I've wired a switch into the thin ground wire on the relay which will isolate it when necessary. The switch I have is a 3 pin illuminated rocker. Is there anyway to get this to illuminate when the vsr is active ( or switch is on and vsr is also closed)
I've got the switch wired inline on the ground wire but as it's not really switching a load there's no way I can use the switch ground and light the LED.
Or is there an easy way to connect a separate LED indicator to see when VSR is active?
Thanks
The vsr on my boat has an led built in.
Why would you want to prioritise the leisure battery over the engine battery?
The whole idea of a VSR is that your engine battery is charged first as it's the most important.
I would have thought that if you disable the VSR it will simply charge the engine battery unless you've got it wired up back to front.
I could obviously be wrong but that's my initial thought.
Could you use a double pole, single throw switch - one side of it switching the ground to the VSR, the other switching a separate lower current 12v system circuit with a light on it?
Agree with Sharkbait. Why would you want to do it?
If I'm on solar or hook up then the relay closes as it senses charging voltage in the leisure battery. My relay closes with charging voltage applied to either the leisure or starter battery. Sometimes I want all the solar just to go to the leisure battery as I know my starter one will be fine, and if I'm on a hook up then I don't always want the car battery getting charged all the time as it's a different capacity to the leisure batteries.
Maybe just some kind of breaker switch between car battery and relay?
if your starter battery is already fully charged, then it won't take anything significant from the solar, even with the relay closed, so all the charge will go to the leisure anyway
I don’t always want the car battery getting charged all the time as it’s a different capacity to the leisure batteries.
Doesn't really work like that.... once the charge relay senses 13.7 (or similar) voltage from your engine battery then it swaps to the 'house battery' - so...
if your starter battery is already fully charged, then it won’t take anything significant from the solar, even with the relay closed, so all the charge will go to the leisure anyway
This.
To stop mine doing it I wired the negative to be switched by a relay controlled by the ignition.
I put an override switch in to energise the relay on the rare occasion that I wanted to connect the batteries together with the ignition off.
I've done the same as phil5556. When parked up over the weekend I want all the solar going into the leisure battery, the starter battery doesn't need charging. I have a Victron Cyrix VSR with a relay in the ground wire so it's only active when the ignition is on. With a bypass switch so that if I leave it parked up over winter I can activate the VSR full time and the solar will keep the starter battery charged. Works really well.
I've been trying to think of how you'd wire it so the light in the switch came on when the VSR was active, and I can't think of a simple way to do it. With the Cyrix I have it's not easy to detect when the VSR is on. There is no status output terminal, so I think you'd have to sense the current in the ground wire to detect when the contactor was powered. Or possibly a Hall sensor detecting the magnetic field of the contactor. Either way it will involve some electronics.
Many VSRs have indicator lights on. Could use on if them and have it visible somehow? There are also VSRs with a Start Assist switch which connects the two batteries automatically. Dunno if that helps.
Well if you're utterly determined to override the purpose of the vsr do it then you could simply fit a battery isolation switch to the engine battery.
That'll do it.
I'll suggest a more complex setup, how about adding some logic (could be done with relays) so that if the solar is generating, the engine is off and the handbrake is on then you disconnect the engine battery?