O.K. to use a battery terminal disconnect switch?

What is probably happening is that the memory in the ecu for the engine, the clock and memory in the radio and any other gadget hooked to the vehicle battery is draining it, specially if the RV sits for prolonged times with out being used.

Place the disconnect switch in such a manner that it does not create a hazard when disconnected.

navegator

If you have 110vac power available, connect a Battery Minder smart trickle charger to your starting battery to keep it up without overcharging. Shouldn't need to disconnect starting battery with BM connected. I installed a Trik-L-Start device on the RV that keeps the starting and house batteries charged while rig is connected to shore power.

You won't harm the electrical system with such devices, assuming of course that they're properly specified and installed. Do be aware that many are not really designed to switch under load, so turn off electrical stuff before operating the battery disconnect. Also, if your isolator is not actually isolating, putting the cutoff in for one battery will make the other battery drain more quickly from the various parasitic loads.

Incidentally, it may be easier to connect it into the negative lead rather than the positive lead; the effect is identical in either case. An open circuit is open no matter where it is disconnected.

If only one of the batteries is getting discharged, that's pretty conclusive evidence that the two are indeed isolated somehow or another.

seems like after a good 24 hr charge via parallax converter, i unplug shore and toggle house disconnect to STORE. batteries' voltage after a few hours settle in the 12.5-12.6 range. so i disconnect house ground cable and soon hear a clunk. in a few minutes, chassis bat is a happy high 12.68 and rhe house a cozy 12.75.

5 yrs ago i replaced the chassis/house isolator solenoid, but i think it never changed a thing. i am suspicious that the B.I.R.D. gatekeeper is not adhering to its 13.3 v thresholds, and never has. or else trail lite miswired something.

if i knew where the bird is, i might figure a way to test it.

Not sure what the "clunk" is/means, but an easy way to see if your isolator is "isolating" is to pull the positive cable from one of the batteries (house or chassis), then see if there is voltage on that cable. If the batteries are isloated, there should be no voltage. If there is still voltage on that cable, then it is obviously pulling it from the other battery and your isolator "isn't" isolating.

i sure have measured a voltage between house batt pos term and the unconnected ground cable before.

i may be needing a 3rd solenoid, today i felt the iso solenoid and it was warm. it was not latching to allow shore or genset to charge chassis, only house batt was getting 13.++ i tapped solenoid w/ a tack hammer a few times and it must've latched as chassis batt voltage read 13.xx

strange behavior such as needing a quick on/off toggle to reverse polarity and force these BIRD isolator solenoids to unlatch and/or lose 12v between two small terminals after charging was discussed in markopolo's classBforum, so it's not my imagination.

DPDT tames BIRD

i would dearly love to get to a simpler setup where house and chassis are totally separate like in many older rigs. this can include the qwikee step/ignition and emergency start wiring as well. i just don't know how to safely disengage all this hardware what my rig has.







intellitec SINGLE DISCONNECT BATTERY CONTROL CENTER

http://www.intellitec.com/assets/pdf/5301087new3.pdf

plugged in to shore and both batteries charged this time. unplugged shore and iso solenoid (top shiny one in pics) stays warm and i read 11.2 v across its two small terminals instead of zero.

turn house batt disconnect to STORE and still read 11.2 across small terms. had the idea to toggle the dash emergency start switch, snd solenoid clicked off w/ zero volts across small iso solenoid terminals.

i think that the 'failing' solenoid is actually a symptom of a different issue that existed the 10 yrs i have owned the rig. it is only about 5 yrs old and replaces the 5 year OEM relay.


i titled this thread "O.K. to use a battery terminal disconnect switch?"

i think i would get more of what i need to keep my 2 batteries healthy if i could lose the iso solenoid and charge batts separately as needed while not in use.

SOOO...if i simply disconnect rhe two wires from the 2 small iso solenoid terminals, would i get what i want and cause no harm?

I use a terminal disconnect switch on my engine and house batteries. I got cheap ones from Harbor Freight for a few dollars each. Being cheap, the plastic knobs spun on the brass insert, spinning the knob but not the brass piece. I fixed this by cross-drilling them on my drill press, drilling a hole through the knob and brass insert, and then pressed in a piece of a nail to pin the parts together so that they could not spin independently.

They work great.

I use them because I was getting parasitic loss that was killing the engine battery, and rather than hunt down the electrical problem I just disconnect the battery when I put the RV in storage.

Also I hard-wired a propane/CO detector to the house battery and it would drain the battery over time if not disconnected.