I have a functional VHF Orion installed with a SS2000-ERCSN1 and SVR-200U in my vehicle. Everything is powered from a Blue Sea 6 circuit fuse panel, fed with 6ga from the battery. Everything worked A-ok until I installed a Sho-Me signal stick and tried to power it from the SmartSiren. I assigned a siren/light button on the control head to power the B+ lead of the arrow stick controller.
When I hit the button to activate it, the arrow comes on but Orion resets itself like I turned it off and back on. I took the arrow stick control box apart and found a 40/60A relay, a decent sized capacitor and a large diode run between the negative lead and incoming positive, with current flow from - to +.
My thought is this control box when it powers up is causing enough of a voltage drop to make the Orion reset. Thoughts?
Orion reset issue
Orion reset issue
The serial bus on my Orion is working for it's money.
Re: Orion reset issue
The diode is just your reverse polarity protection. If you hook up the power leads backward (or in a positive ground vehicle) the diode shunts the two together to blow the fuse and protect the equipment. This is a very common practice, your radio has the same thing in it.
As to your problem, yes it does sound like a current supply issue. I would not wire the lighting power to your distribution system. I'm sure its quite neat and clean but high current devices must be wired directly to the battery. This alleviates the voltage drop problem as well as noise issues. In the same manner, check your grounds. The best is to run both the radio and light bar ground to the battery negative cable. If this is impractical, use a good chassis ground but don't tie the two together. As sharing a common distribution drops the voltage so does a common ground return raise the ground point.
As to your problem, yes it does sound like a current supply issue. I would not wire the lighting power to your distribution system. I'm sure its quite neat and clean but high current devices must be wired directly to the battery. This alleviates the voltage drop problem as well as noise issues. In the same manner, check your grounds. The best is to run both the radio and light bar ground to the battery negative cable. If this is impractical, use a good chassis ground but don't tie the two together. As sharing a common distribution drops the voltage so does a common ground return raise the ground point.