Garmin ACCESSORY ON orange wire not closing micro relay???

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vas

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ok, it's a first world problem, but I got to solve it...

Added a small IR dome camera to the e/r (and will probably add a second one as it leaves a few blank spots)
Wired it up to the lower helm, give it 12V, Garmin both 4008 and 5008 pick up the signal and I can see the IR view on the plotter screen. All fine.

Now, I don't really want to have the camera running all the time and typically the breaker for 24V supply to NAV gear is on all the time as the AIS transceiver is there.
Further the 12V breaker for the NMEA2K bus is also mostly always on.

Now then,
I thought it wouldn't be a good idea to have the accessory on wire (orange, pin 17 in the typical blue GPSMAP 4, 5, 6, 7 K series plotters) that goes to V- when the plotter is on to do the earthing job for the camera(s) as I wasn't sure how many amps it will accept (and it's anyway a v.tiny cable!)
So, I got a Schneider micro relay on the el. panel and trigger it from the plotter accessory cable, so the camera(s) run only when plotter is on.

Wired all up, nada, doesn't work. measure with my vmeter and shows 3.5V on the coil of the microswitch with plotter on and theoretically orange being V- :(
FWIW, I got the V+ from the NMEA2K breaker.
So, I jumpered with another wire the orange to earth, relay clicked, removed the jumper relay stayed on.

So, seems that the tiny orange cable is not man enough to engage a bloody tiny microswitch! Doubt it will manage to run the camera as well!

makes sense, am I unlucky, missing something, in other words, what's the fcking point of having an accessory trigger wire if it wont run a thing?
TBH, turns out to be a pretty pointless feature...

Two solutions I can think of (both hacks!) are to:

A. replace V+ to a 24V one :D
B. replace the 12V microrelay with a 6V I'm waiting to arrive from ebay for another job (but got two just in case ;) )

cheers

V.
 
Teehee. How annoying!
I can't think of anything else. 6v micro relay seems best idea, or build a transistor based circuit to function as an ultra micro relay.
Or a "camera on" switch on the dash, (which you'll forget to turn on and realise that when you're sitting down at the fly helm :D)
 
Teehee. How annoying!
I can't think of anything else. 6v micro relay seems best idea, or build a transistor based circuit to function as an ultra micro relay.
Or a "camera on" switch on the dash, (which you'll forget to turn on and realise that when you're sitting down at the fly helm :D)

v.annoying indeed!
re transistor circuit, I think I'd call that off, way OTT for such a simple job.
camera on switch is a no-no as it will happen exactly as you predict :D
Haven't spent 100s of hours on sorting and organizing useful automation to fall that low :rolleyes:

Will try the two relay tricks and see.
Wonder though, if anyone has ever managed to trigger something with this ACC ON wire, curious!
You obviously haven't bothered with it (the blue NMEA cable I'm using was in the bag of goodies you kindly donated for the MiToS project years ago...)

cheers

V.
 
Two solutions I can think of (both hacks!) are to:

A. replace V+ to a 24V one :D
B. replace the 12V microrelay with a 6V I'm waiting to arrive from ebay for another job (but got two just in case ;) )

cheers

V.

first part of the test (the easy one) done today.
Swapped 12V on the coil for 24V :D
The 12V relay sort of clicked (I can hear and feel it) but not enough to move the contacts over to the other side. Actually contacts haven't moved at all so still signals open, effectively does bugger all, wonder how mechanically that happens, something moves but not the contacts, not much in there tbh.
Good thing is that the voltage across the coil is now 6.something Volt.
So hopefully by replacing the relay to a 6V one (still to arrive), it's going to work!

Assuming it does, wonder how long it's going to last.

cheers

V.
 
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