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thanks everyone for joining me today for another tech talk we're going to be chatting uh we've got a question from a fellow Boulder named Lawrence Lauren asks Jeff what is a remote battery switch and what is it used for good question Lawrence good on you for being curious a remote battery switch is really solving the conundrum that or the problem and this is a real problem is that battery switches are meant to be used right they're meant to be used they're not something that should be left on a boat and never turned on or off otherwise what's the point and they have to be in a location that as a boater you can use them now the flip side to that and that's good that's what we want as a boat owner and as a boater you want to be able to disconnect your batteries from any load and you want to do that in a convenient location without having to go down the engine room open a hatch because when you do need to disconnect a battery you need to generally do it right away not always but the times you really need to an event of an emergency like an electrical fire you need to turn that off right away so battery switches are located for most of us in a convenient location as an operator where we can actually turn the battery switch on or off without having to go down in the engine room or go in a place that's not all that practical but what's the catch the catch is bringing and giving us voters a convenient location for a battery switch means that in many cases the battery the wiring between the engine battery or a battery and the loads takes a detour right in a lot of cases the battery switch is not on a direct path between the battery and the loads it's extending the circuit it might be making it a lot longer significantly longer and that causes voltage drop and voltage drop is a real issue it's a real problem especially on some circuits where you've got high loads and you're going to have the batteries go to basically a low voltage because you're using a lot of current or it could be you're using your batteries you know pretty deep and at the end you just don't want to have excessive voltage drop you want to have as much energy as possible directly to your loads so to Lawrence's question why a remote battery switch well the remote battery switch is really solving a pretty neat problem and that is to have the battery switch be mounted in a direct path between the battery and the loads but having the control of that remote battery switch happen at any location on the boat and we're seeing more and more boats utilize this feature where remote battery switches are located near the batteries or at anywhere between the batteries and the loads and the remote battery switch is located at the help located at the electrical panel and then that way the current doesn't actually go to the panel or the AC distribution or your helm only the control wires do and so the big Advantage with that is you reduce the unnecessary voltage drop and that's why boaters are installing Robo battery switches and Builders are doing it too it's a really handy Tool uh 30 40 years ago that wasn't an option and some of them can take pretty high current draw like 500 amps 300 amps so it's a useful tool to minimize wiring costs aboard your boat and also to minimize voltage drop so great question Lawrence and thanks for asking and thanks for all of you for being curious and geeking out with me about all things voting electrical thanks so if you're curious again go on our website and find out more answers and solutions with this sort of setup and thanks for asking and thanks for all of you for listening and tuning in