That is dead on. glad to see its working nice.
Im glad you went with boilers recommendation on the switch placement.
A relay is nothing but an electronic switch. there are two reasons/purposes for using a relay in your setup.
#1: the relay allows your lights to go off with the vehicle.
#2: the relay lets you run the toggle switch with low current.
Relay operation is simple.
The 85 & 86 pin is a coil. an electromanet once excited.
The 30 & 87 is main power in and accessory power out. The actual switch.
When power is applied to the 85 pin electricity flows from 85 through a coil then flows out 86 to gnd. the coil causes an electromagnet. the magnet pulls the switch "closed", which connects your power supply (pin 30), to the accessory (pin 87).
When you remove power from the coil ( 85 pin), the electromagnet then releases, thus allowing the switch (between pins 87 & 30) to return to the open position, which kills power to your accessory. Your setup includes a toggle switch, which controls input to the 85 pin, this allows you to turn the lights on and off as you please (assuming the radio has power).
Reasons for doing this. your relay is there to act as a remote switch, so your lights will only be able to be powered up with the ignition. If you only had a toggle switch hooked to a power supply and your lights, your lghts would come on at any time you flp the toggle switch.
The main reason for relays is to remove high current from a mechanical switch. most toggle switches can only handle 5-10amps. there are heavier duty ones but they cost more and typically get bigger with amperage. so if your toggle switch only handles 5 amps, and your accessory can pull 6amps, your toggle switch will die prematurely
since it has more current flowing through it than it can handle. The relay can handle 30 amps, so you use the relay in place of a toggle switch.
But wait, doesnt the coil pull current (pin 85 and 86)? yes, but it pulls basically nothing compared to the accessory. talking milliamps in most cases. You wired in the toggle switch to the wire coming from the radio, allowing control of the relay with your toggle. meaning the toggle switch only has current flowing through in the amount of the coil. milliamps. thats way better than 6amps.
The original way you wired it, you were pulling power off the radio to power your lights directly, that means your are pulling the entire load of the lights from the tiny radio wire, and it still has to power the radio. So that way you could have easily blown the radio fuse, or burned the wire up. So now you are only pulling the load of the coil from the radio wire (miniscule). Much more reiable and much safer.
Hope this answered your questions. Feel free to ask more.
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