with the boat, its not easy to have someone "drive to ya". and seatow can get really expensive really quickly.
you want to make sure your starter battery is in good condition and always fully charged. if you wire both together and spend the night off shore, youll want a few things on overnight. lets say you wake up in the morning and have a hard time starting the engine and drain the battery. Now you have no electronics and no way to try and fix/restart the engine. you wouldn't be able to call for help or a tow unless you have a backup VHF radio, and as stated above, seatow gets expensive. You wouldn't know your exact location or even if youre drifting unless youre really handy with a chart too.
the alternators on boats are pretty small to make them fit under the cowling too. if you run the starter battery low, you can leave it on that battery when youre underway to send all the charge to that battery.
there is also the issue of balance charging/capacity. batteries in parallel will only be as "strong" as the weakest battery.
having the battery die in your car/camper is monumentally easier to deal with than having both batteries die in a boat off shore.
granted is not always necessary to have a disconnect setup like this. not everyone will need it every time they go out. but when something goes wrong off shore, the consequences are allot worse than having the same issue on land.
agreed though, this switch might be overkill for a camper, but its flush mount, allows you the option to select one or both batteries for a various reasons, and its overall just a solid switch.
you want to make sure your starter battery is in good condition and always fully charged. if you wire both together and spend the night off shore, youll want a few things on overnight. lets say you wake up in the morning and have a hard time starting the engine and drain the battery. Now you have no electronics and no way to try and fix/restart the engine. you wouldn't be able to call for help or a tow unless you have a backup VHF radio, and as stated above, seatow gets expensive. You wouldn't know your exact location or even if youre drifting unless youre really handy with a chart too.
the alternators on boats are pretty small to make them fit under the cowling too. if you run the starter battery low, you can leave it on that battery when youre underway to send all the charge to that battery.
there is also the issue of balance charging/capacity. batteries in parallel will only be as "strong" as the weakest battery.
having the battery die in your car/camper is monumentally easier to deal with than having both batteries die in a boat off shore.
granted is not always necessary to have a disconnect setup like this. not everyone will need it every time they go out. but when something goes wrong off shore, the consequences are allot worse than having the same issue on land.
agreed though, this switch might be overkill for a camper, but its flush mount, allows you the option to select one or both batteries for a various reasons, and its overall just a solid switch.
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