View Transcript

Hide Transcript

Transcript is auto-generated.

hello everyone jeff cote here with

votingtechtalk.com we have a fellow

boater who is asking a question

regarding battery switches and their use

on their boats

all right and this is a question that's

going to apply to a lot of us actually

and it's

i would say many of us find this topic

confusing so

honestly there's no harm in asking a

good question right

the more we get to be better informed

about how our boats behave the less

likely we are going to be unpleasantly

surprised

so david asks is it okay to turn off the

house battery switch when i'm shore

power or should i leave it on

a further question is maybe you can

review the protocol or what you would

recommend when leaving the boat at the

dock i normally just head out for

weekends okay

all right so let's first

context

what's the purpose of a battery switch

a battery switch is a device that allows

you to isolate not all things on the

battery but most things on the battery

and most things are called what's called

the positive switch distribution meaning

it's a portion of your battery that all

things connected to it you want to be

able to disconnect so there's really two

concepts with battery switches there's

things that are before the battery

switch and things that are after the

battery switch called unswitched and

switched right

and the reality is that most of the

circuits on our boats probably the large

majority like 95 percent

or 99 are going to be what are

considered switched

meaning a water pump

uh a chart plotter lights

all those things

um are going to be on the switch side of

your battery switch

there's certain things that should

always work on your boat regardless of

whether battery switch is on or off and

that is your bilge pump

your chargers your alternators there's a

lot of devices that are charging your

solar if you have solar a wind turbine

whatever it is those go to the

unswitched side meaning they're always

on so you can actually have that battery

switch if everything's wired properly

and that's a big if because as we know

it's a wild west with boating but if

your boat is wired

let's say quote unquote normal

you should be able to turn that battery

switch to off and have only select few

circuits enabled like a bilge pump like

a battery charger okay so then the

question from david was well jeff what

should i do with my battery switch when

i leave the boat

or even when i'm at the boat with shore

power well first of all if you're

actually utilizing your boat and you're

connected to shore power

the reality is most of a lot of the

circuits on your boat are not powered by

ac or dc they're just actually powered

by dc direct current

and so what that means is they're

actually powered by a battery now don't

get alarmed the good news is you have a

battery charger or you should have a

battery charger so when you're connected

on shore power hopefully your battery

charger is sized big enough to offset

whatever loads you're taking from your

battery right so we want the charger to

be able you know like i was on a boat

one day and

they had a 20 amp charger and it was a

42 46 foot boat

and so sometimes their loads would

actually exceed what their charger was

and that's definitely a problem but most

of us are not going to have that issue

so you definitely when you're actually

on shore power and you're staying on the

boat or you might be at a marina you

might be at the destination staying on

your boat and you're connected shore

power

you're probably going to want to keep

the house battery switch on because

otherwise your water pump a lot of your

cabin lights a lot of your circuits on

your boat are dc powered only and will

not work if you turn that battery switch

off and you should test this out by the

way this is can't harm anything

you should be on your boat at dock turn

your battery switch off and see what

circuits are not working

curiosity is a gift right because it

answers so many questions burning

questions that we have as boaters

so a on shore power turn the batteries

and keep the battery switch on because

most likely you're going to need to run

these loads that are powered by your

battery which are in turn recharged with

a battery charger that is powered from

shore pump

so that's the condition for your battery

switch when you're at shore power now

what happens when you're at your power

and you leave the boat

well then it gets interesting

as we are due in our homes when we leave

a home for an extended period of time or

an apartment

or a business you know we all learn

certain habits from our parents

and those habits are to turn things off

if you're not using it

so i would argue and i'm certainly a big

promoter when i leave my own boat i turn

all circuits off that are not going to

be needed while i'm away i do that for

reasons of safety i don't want to have a

circuit that's energized like for

example if my refrigerator refrigerator

doesn't have any food in it the door is

open so it doesn't get stale

why would i have

the circuit breaker on

right and have that circuit energized

what happens if i don't know there's a

fault on the fridge i don't want to have

any circuit energized that i'm not there

right because i want to be there in case

something bad happens

so what you're going to be looking for

is trying to see okay if i can't what

circuits should i disable on my boat and

generally the good news is when you turn

that battery switch off you're

effectively doing all that

in the snap in one turn of the switch

everything that is connected to that

battery that should be off comes off or

turns off and the circuits that should

stay on like your battery charger like

your bilge pump carbon monoxide stereo

memory are always still going to be

connected so if your battery switch is

done well when you leave the boat and

you don't plan on having anything

powered from dc other than the few items

that i talked that are on the end switch

side then yeah i would actually turn off

my battery switch because then

guarantees that you're not going to have

some problem or reduces the risk that

you're going to have an electrical

problem when you're not on board so

great question even and thanks for

asking

i want to thank you for watching this

video

don't forget to subscribe if you want to

get more of this cool content and also

check out our website if you've got

questions that are unanswered we've

actually taken the time to answer quite

a few questions and you might be

surprised to find the answer right there

on our website so thanks again

English (auto-generated)