Battery Switches?

[vandamit]

Thinking about installing some battery switches in the boat to kill the power when not being used. If I don't use my boat for a couple weeks the batterys drain down some....some times quite a bit depending on how long it's been. I have heard that the fish finders can draw them down even when switched off but anyhow....how many of you have them and do you have one for each battery etc? I have 2 trolling motor batteries and 1 cranking battery.

[bdog7198]

My RT188 came from Ranger with one for trolling motor and one from main electric. when both are off tilt/trim works and that is about it. I turn them both off when I get off the water so there is no fear of accidentally leaving a bilge pump running and there is no parasitic draw down of the batteries.

[howieranger]

A circuit breaker for the trolling batteries and a manual cut off switch for the cranking battery. Blue seas is a good brand for the manual disconnect and you can buy one that is a manual cut off and a jump switch

[friogatto]

Perko, Blue Sea, Marinco, and TH Marine all make switches for different configurations.

My setup
Marinco Contour Master switch - outboard
TH Marine Trolling motor Circuit Breaker
1 - Power Poles
2 - Jack Plate
3 - Fuse Block/onboard computer
4 - Trim Tabs

4 Circuit breakers, each isolates power hungry items from each other. It also prevents voltage drops to the graphs when I run the trim tabs or power poles. All 4 breaker switches connect to the stud bolt on the battery, the outboard battery cable connects to the lead terminal on the battery. Again done to eliminate voltage drops. Graphs stay up and running while starting the outboard.

[Garfish]

#Add this....leave your auto bilge pump and alarm system (if you have one) directly attached to the cranking battery unless in your garage.

[Bassbme]

I installed a single switch between a Blue Seas 6 circuit fuse box that I installed. All of my depth finders go to the added box as well as the mains from my fuse box under the console. The only time my depth finders are hooked up is when I have the boat at the lake, so no worry about them draining my battery. I just like being able to shut all of the power off to the boat with one switch.

I don't have a switch for my trolling motor because I unplug it when not at the lake, and it's a simple 4 wire system.

[vandamit]

so how necessary are these switches do you guys think?

[m.t.hands]

so how necessary are these switches do you guys think?

my boat has a main power switch and TM battery switch, seen and heard about a lot of fires, and there is just something about having 3 batteries and a bunch of gas altogether (for me anyway) personally I like them, two things I never really liked having in an "attached" garage w/o a kill switch was a race car or a boat, both experience some drastic vibration and shock

[TroyBoy30]