Hide Transcript
Transcript is auto-generated.
hi everyone
jeff cote here with boating tech talk
and we have another installment of
unboxing and today we're going to be
talking about meritron's digital
switching so this concept of digital
switching is the ability to turn a
circuit on or off from a faraway place
without having all the amperage going to
that faraway place
so in our boats most of us when we're
turning a circuit on or off we're
actually stopping the current from going
or depowering or powering the device and
the current is actually going through
that switch
so for instance on my own boat you know
i have a dc ac panel and all of those
circuit breakers and switches
are effectively stopping uh the current
or disconnecting the voltage from the
battery to the load but that breaker or
switch is actually seeing all the
current going through this concept of
digital switching is there to
lighten both and give more
i guess
flexibility right so that you can have
the shortest run from the battery
to a load
and have the switching of that load
happening somewhere else
so maratron a big player in the industry
has come out with a digital switching
solution and today what we're going to
be doing is an unboxing of this dc load
module
pretty neat um we've worked with digital
switching for probably i would say
eight years now from different vendors
uh but like i said meritron is a big
player in the marine world
and are at the forefront of enemy a2000
and the digitization of boats right so
all about conversion of signals analog
signals to digital or simply digital
from the start all the way to the end
so that integration that play having
multiple systems talk one to another is
part of meritron's sort of
offering and now they're doing digital
switching
okay so the first thing we're gonna look
at is this dc load module and i'm going
to be opening that up
nice and gentle
this is a 12
circuit
dc load module so that means that you
can actually
have 12 programmable breakers
it's got maximum 75 amps um you can do
obviously 8 to 32 volts so basically
without issue you're going to be able to
do
12 and 24 volt systems
12 programmable breakers and 7 different
inputs okay
this is the module that is able to be
controlled remotely and we're going to
be doing another unboxing and you can
see it in another product but here it is
and we'll have a link below but this is
actually the switch module that is
actually also and you need the two so
check out the video for this and then
lastly this product over here
uh can be installed as a bypass so if
these are critical loads that you all
you always want as sort of a backup if
you're not trusting that the digital
switching will work and if something
fails you want to be able to turn that
back like it could be a bilge pump for
example it could be even a windshield
wiper
it could be your nav lights it could be
a water pump something critical that you
can't live without then you might be
thinking about doing a bypass so the
bypass module is another product opening
that we're gonna have on our website so
make sure you check that out and so the
three products work well together so
again first what we're talking about
right now is we're talking about this dc
loan module okay excellent so we're
going to open that up also by the way
this is ignition proof which is great
uh also gives low dumping and also is
reverse polarity protected what's
reverse polarity in case you wonder
reverse polarity is when
people like ourselves
here
make mistakes and we screw up and we
swap the polarity so meaning we put a
negative on a positive
and a negative and a positive on a
negative so we literally inverse the
colors right so on ac circuits um that
would be the neutral is the hot and the
hot as the neutral so
reverse polarity is an issue some
definitely some appliances if you put a
negative on a positive and a positive
especially on the negative
uh you're going to be in trouble and so
having a module that prevents sort of
reverse polarity helps us humans because
we make mistakes even though we try not
to okay
so first comes out with the manual which
is nice always got to read the manual
and they make it easier now they're
doing it i think for a lot of us they're
saying by the way this is the small
version of the manual called the quick
start guide right so you're not too
intimidated so there's that good
packaging
i'm going to take this out slowly and i
want to show you how
relatively small
this module is so the concept here is
that you could have these modules
located throughout the boat right and
then you can control those modules over
enemy a2000 which is nice
so here you go
this is the module so you know you could
have i could see a 40-foot boat having
multiple of these modules three four
five of these modules be in different
parts of the boat maybe one of them is
in the forward section of the boat where
all the births are another one might be
in the salon another one in the fly
bridge another one down in the engine
room maybe another one in the end half
lazarette and so what you're doing is
you're avoiding the need and this is the
key point here about distributed
switching you're avoiding the need to
have everything come back to your panel
right and the builders like this because
it allows us to save weight right so
this is why it's called distributed
switching meaning the switching can
happen in multiple places on your boat
you've got different sort of connection
points here if you can see them right
here all the pins and i'll take the next
cable out which is going to hopefully
remove a little bit of your intimidation
here they have these deutsch connectors
which are really good connection points
and you can see they even have these
pigtails so the pigtails could then in
turn be terminated on a terminal strip
which i'm a big fan of
because it allows for good connections
some of you might be tempted to do
butt connectors i personally
try to avoid doing butt connectors as
much as possible not to say you don't
want to
but it avoid it limits the ability for
you to inspect a circuit when it's
energized so i'm a big fan of terminal
strips a lot of boat builders are fans
of terminal strips as well it's maybe uh
you feel like it's two connections
because you'll need a ring connector on
either side but man oh man does it make
your life easy when you've got troubles
so they've got two of these pigtails
with these deutsch connectors
obviously a little warranty card and
uh a usb with some uh information uh and
programming on it so notice um
again important you've got basically
seven programmable channels so this is
where the connection points are
happening here and here and so you're
going to be able to and as an example
you could have this
in the v-berth area of your boat and you
could be turning off the head
maybe fans light circuits
there could be
maybe a water pump to run a water pump
to power the sink
you could have different again i don't
know bilge pump
all of those are possible and instead of
the circuit going all the way back to
your dc panel
now those circuits are simply terminated
at this module so this is a big big win
okay big win for saving uh wires on
boats
all right let me see make sure i've got
all my notes covered here because i came
prepared this morning um
yeah
there's basically you can handle a
maximum of 10 amp circuits and uh four
of those circuits are five amps at
adults
as well so that brings you to a total of
12 circuits six of them at 10 amps four
of them at five amps which is pretty
cool and some of these circuits can be
parallel to allow for maximum at more
average to go through a circuit this
important thing in some of us and this
is normal by the way some of us go
distributed switching sounds complicated
what happens if this doesn't work
well this is where this bypass module
and we have a box opening for that as
well make sure you check it out we'll
explain sort of the what happens when
something doesn't go well so this is the
failsafe right here so make sure if
you're interested in a failsafe or a
backup check this box opening
that's about it actually with this
device you can actually maybe i want to
here's where actually the positive
so in case you're wondering you would
actually have a relatively large cable
feed this post over here
this post would receive
at least the ability to give you 75 amps
of because this potentially can provide
75 amps so you're going to want a dc
cable positive and remember there's no
negative here right so the negative is
going to every single circuit
right this is actually where
within north america
most builders i'd say probably the large
majority
only switch on the positive side so
you'd have a large cable coming here and
then effectively through the enemy a2000
port which is right here
you'd be connecting the switch module
and so then you'd be able to control
which of these circuits can be energized
and the control of sending current or
voltage from here to these ports is done
via enemy 2000 and we're going to be
talking about that in the next module so
if you've got further questions or share
us about how you've installed this
product on your boat please post down
below
and let us know how it went for you all
right thanks for watching also if you
found this video interesting please
subscribe
um it honestly does it does help us to
know that all this time that we're
investing is actually we're reaching a
lot of voters and i want to thank all of
you for watching thanks for spending
some time with me
English (auto-generated)