2014 Keystone Sprinter - Battery Disconnect
Howdy, We recently upgraded to a new to us, 2014 Keystone Sprinter. We are parked seasonally, but with no shore power. We use a 60w solar panel and generator to charge the battery. If we leave f...
Forum Discussion
CaptSailor wrote:
I discovered this unit DOES have a disconnect switch right behind the battery, and I know for sure the slide works with it off, but I don't know if the fridge will light. Does anyone happen to know?
It's not surprisng at all that the slide will work regardless of whether the battery disconnect switch is on or off as the slide motor doesn't present any parasitic draw - same for the tongue jack - no reason to run either of these through a disconnect switch. The purpose of any battery disconnect switch is to prevent parasitic draw from items inside the trailer from drawing down the battery during periods of non-use ... but if you want the fridge to work while you're away and the trailer isn't plugged into shore power then the fridge must be running on gas and be able to receive 12 vdc power from the battery to run it's electronics, which in turn means that disconnect switch obviously has to be on. The downside is that other items that aren't being used because you're not there are still also drawing down the battery, the radio memory circuit being one - I added my own kill switch for those times I absolutely want the radio totally off and not drawing down the battery. Remember also to turn off the television wall plate and if your fridge has a climate control circuit turn it off as well as it alone will seriously draw down the battery ... if your particular fridge doesn't have a switch it would be good idea to add your own, as I've done. Your propane / CO detector will also be running 24/7 anytime that disconnect switch is on but when you're not there it's a moot point as to whether it's serving any useful purpose since there's no one there to respond even if it does alarm ... regardless, it's constantly drawing down your battery. Since your intention seems to be running your fridge constantly even though you're not there and you have no shore power available solar is the solution, the problem being you don't have anywhere near enough, 100 watts being the minimum for this application.
