Battery Disconnect Switch |
Post Reply | Page 123> |
Author | ||
lostagain
Senior Member Joined: 06 Sep 2016 Location: Quaker Hill, CT Online Status: Offline Posts: 2595 |
Topic: Battery Disconnect Switch Posted: 24 May 2019 at 8:55am |
|
It was kind of like watching HDTV when they are showing marginally competent people engaging in grossly unsafe work practices, especially during the tear out phase. The other day, I stumbled into a video of a guy cutting on his big toe to drain it with a rusty razor blade. As offgrid says, not all you see on YouTube is done by people who know what they're doing. i would add cable TV to that.
|
||
Never leave footprints behind.
Fred & Maria Kearney Sonoma 167RB Our Pod 172 2019 Ford F-150 4x4 2.7 EcoBoost |
||
offgrid
Senior Member Joined: 23 Jul 2018 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5290 |
Posted: 24 May 2019 at 6:27am | |
That is a good "how NOT to do it" video.
The disconnect is in the negative leg: WRONG. There is no indication i could see that he has any fuses or circuit breakers to protect the cnductors to either his trailer or his solar array: WRONG. Just because somebody puts a video up on youtube doesn't mean they know what they're doing. |
||
1994 Chinook Concourse
1995 RV6A Experimental Aircraft 2015 Rpod 179 - sold |
||
burnerjohnmichael
Newbie Joined: 14 Feb 2016 Location: 89048 Online Status: Offline Posts: 7 |
Posted: 23 May 2019 at 8:40pm | |
https://youtu.be/UWZJtv2uoR8
|
||
StephenH
podders Helping podders - pHp Joined: 29 Nov 2015 Location: Wake Forest, NC Online Status: Offline Posts: 6329 |
Posted: 20 May 2019 at 1:55pm | |
Mine stays plugged in to shore power when we are home. The only time the switch gets used is if we have to take it somewhere and leave it where I know it will not be connected. If it were not plugged in, the solar charger would be a great idea provided I could position the panel to get sufficient sunlight. The front of our R-Pod faces NE.
|
||
StephenH
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom,... ouR escaPOD mods Former RPod 179 Current Cherokee Grey Wolf 24 JS |
||
offgrid
Senior Member Joined: 23 Jul 2018 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5290 |
Posted: 20 May 2019 at 10:31am | |
That's a great way to do it. |
||
1994 Chinook Concourse
1995 RV6A Experimental Aircraft 2015 Rpod 179 - sold |
||
mikeyg2347
Groupie Joined: 27 May 2015 Location: MT Online Status: Offline Posts: 75 |
Posted: 20 May 2019 at 10:21am | |
[QUOTE=podwerkz]Just FYI, my battery disconnect switch is for disconnecting the battery from the trailer electrics, but the small 50w solar panel and controller always remain connected to the battery.
|
||
Mike
|
||
offgrid
Senior Member Joined: 23 Jul 2018 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5290 |
Posted: 20 May 2019 at 10:08am | |
You can use the terms hot and neutral for DC too. Pretty much all telecom gear dating back to Alexander Bell was 48V positive ground, so in those systems the positive is the neutral conductor and the negative is hot.
You might inadvertently energize the circuits from the tow vehicle or the charger for example. That could create a surprise when you reconnected the battery, or a fault in one of the neutrals could create a fire hazard since they don't have any over current protection. In the rare instances when there is a real need to float (no ground connection) an electrical system (typically for some kind of specialized industrial equipment) both conductors are treated as hots and the code requires both conductors to have fuses or circuit breakers for that reason. Yes, consistency is important. Its much easier to stay safe and to troubleshoot problems efficiently if you go into it knowing what to expect. If your system is installed per code and you see a white wire, it will be a neutral and will always be connected and grounded. A colored wire will be either hot or off depending on the switch positions or whether the fuses are in on not. Turning the conversation around, I don't see any benefit in not following the code by putting the switch in the negative leg. its not like opening the switch is going to risk shorting a tool to the frame, right?
|
||
1994 Chinook Concourse
1995 RV6A Experimental Aircraft 2015 Rpod 179 - sold |
||
podwerkz
Senior Member Joined: 11 Mar 2019 Location: Texas Online Status: Offline Posts: 966 |
Posted: 20 May 2019 at 10:04am | |
Just FYI, my battery disconnect switch is for disconnecting the battery from the trailer electrics, but the small 50w solar panel and controller always remain connected to the battery. SO in my situation, the ground continuity needs to be maintained all the time. (some solar controllers can be damaged if battery power is removed (or cut) while there is a solar panel feeding voltage to the controller)
In my case, the switch breaks the positive connection from the battery to the trailer, inside the trailer. But the positive wire up to that point IS energized, even with the switch off. This way the solar controller can continuously feed both positive and negative. This falls under 'best practice'. Just like using red for positive and black for negative. The electrons sure as heck don't care what color the wire is, but WE need to try to be consistent, using 'best practice'. Out on the trailer tongue, IF the battery switch is physically mounted there, such as in a metal battery box, it is less critical which wire is interrupted for switching: IF there is no (and will never be a) roof mounted solar panel, or solar controller inside, and you can GUARANTEE that NO ONE will ever hook up a standard automotive battery charger to the trailer trying to manually charge the batteries, this person having no idea about the switch, and clamps the red clamp to the positive battery terminal, and the negative clamp to the trailer frame. If they don't see or know about the negative acting switch, they will get no results...no charging when they hook things up. In other words, future proofing. Best practice, among other things, stays consistent: what you do today, and what you want to add tomorrow, or next year, and what a random RV technician will know about, and poor Cousin Charlie, who buys your trailer after you die, and has to figure out what the heck is going on...and what was added, and why was it done that way. Ok, once they get it figured out, fine. If you chose to completely re-wire an RV using pink wire for ground wiring and green for all the positives, it will work. But no one else who works on the wiring in the future will know what is going on, because how could they? But 'best practice' can usually be figured out much quicker, because most of the time, it's also common sense...it is done the same as all other common wiring is done. Common practice and best practice are often the same thing. Disclaimer: Not ALWAYS 'just' common sense, because often there is solid engineering behind it. |
||
r・pod 171 gone but not forgotten!
|
||
StephenH
podders Helping podders - pHp Joined: 29 Nov 2015 Location: Wake Forest, NC Online Status: Offline Posts: 6329 |
Posted: 20 May 2019 at 9:24am | |
|
||
StephenH
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom,... ouR escaPOD mods Former RPod 179 Current Cherokee Grey Wolf 24 JS |
||
offgrid
Senior Member Joined: 23 Jul 2018 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5290 |
Posted: 20 May 2019 at 9:21am | |
It depends where you live. What you are saying is valid for cold winter climates but not warm ones. Cold is good for batteries because the self discharge rate is greatly reduced. They won't freeze if you fully charge them first. But, if you do that in a place with warm winters the batteries will discharge and the electrolyte will most likely stratify, resulting in plate sulfation and either reduced capacity or dead batteries. So, if you live in a place with warm winters, leave the batteries and the charger connected and turned on if you can. You can't go wrong doing that unless you forget to keep water in them. Since I live in a relatively warm climate I don't have a disconnect switch and wouldn't use it if I did. If you can't keep them charged via the charger where you store the rpod then remove them and trickle charge them at home, or get a small solar module and maintain their charge with that.
|
||
1994 Chinook Concourse
1995 RV6A Experimental Aircraft 2015 Rpod 179 - sold |
||
Post Reply | Page 123> |
Forum Jump | Forum Permissions You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum |