Marine 2-Position Battery Switch

Video Transcript for Patrick Distribution Marine 2-Position Battery Switch Review

Hey, everyone, Ryan here at etrailer. Today we're gonna be checking out the Patrick Distribution battery disconnect switch. So when it comes to, you know, different types of vehicles, whether it be a boat, camper, RV, things that tend to kind of sit for periods of time, it's not a bad idea to use a battery disconnect switch. That way you can essentially turn the battery off or disconnect it from the rest of the system. And one of the main reasons for that is to prevent what's called a phantom draw. So for example, maybe you had had experiences before, you put something away in storage and maybe a month or two later, you come back and your battery has run down.

And when things are just left hooked up, even if they're not turned on and they're just sitting, what tends to happen is you get that phantom draw, right There's something using the battery just a little bit at a time. And so by using a disconnect switch, you know, you can disconnect it from that circuit, and you're not gonna have to worry about that. Today we have ours set up on a boat, but it can work with just about any application. You know, whether you have the RV or camper, you know, if you got something special set up on your trailer, whatever the case may be, you should be in pretty good shape there. And with that said, it's super easy to operate.

So you got the on position. Everything's indicated pretty clearly there, and, you know, right now all of our accessories would work as they normally would if it was just hooked up directly to the battery. But whenever you're ready to turn it off and store it or even work on it for that matter, you can kind of push in on the knob a little bit, rotate it over, and it clicks into place into that off position. So now, whatever you have hooked up to this would no longer have power, you know, after the switch. And then there's an actuator out position too.

So, if you rotate it down even more, it's gonna keep everything turned off, but when you click it into that position, you can actually pull the knob out, which I think is pretty convenient. So for example, if you're working on something or even I guess in a sense somewhat of a security measure as well, you know, no one could come in here and accidentally turn this back on and power everything up. So you got a couple options there on what you can actually do with this switch. So I've got another switch on hand here, that way we can just kind of check it out a little closer. So the back, you can remove like that.

It just snaps off. And then of course, once you bolt everything down, the screws go through there and keep everything in place. But if we take a look at the back of it, so this is gonna be able to handle up to 50 volts. So if your standard 12 volt system, you'll be good there. If you have your batteries wired in series, so maybe, you know, a trolling motor or something like that, that is a 24, even a 36 volt system, you know it'll be good. And as far as the amperage goes, that's something you'll have to check and see what, you know, whatever accessory you got draws. It has a continuous rating of 300 amps, which is really high. Hardly anything will exceed that. Intermittent rating of 500 amps, and then 1,000 amp crank rating. So let's say if you had this hooked up in a manner so for like an outboard engine, if you had it hooked up to this, you'd probably be okay. You'd have to check with the manufacturer and see how many amps it draws whenever you actually go to turn the key and start the motor up. One of the things that I like is the case, right So it's a plastic case, and it has these little panels in it that you can pop out and kind of rearrange to best suit your installation needs. So for example, if you wanted to mount this like this and you want the wires to come in from the bottom, you know, you slide them around, keeps that side protected. Now you can run your wires up through there and vice versa. If you want it mounted like this, but the wires come in from this way, you just switch that around. And so it does a pretty good job of keeping everything as closed as possible and giving you a clean install look. You know, it just opens up your options on where and how you can actually mount this up. Even if you don't keep your boat or camper in storage really for long periods of time enough to not really have to worry about disconnecting the battery, there's still a good use for it, and that's kind of exactly why I installed this today. So this is my actual personal boat, and I make it out quite a bit. Never really have to worry about the battery getting run down too much from sitting, especially if you practice proper maintenance, but one of the things that would drive me absolutely crazy, I had a couple small kids, I keep this in the garage, and we'd be out there playing around, working, and they'd climb up in here and push every single one of my buttons and I'd have the pumps running, running dry, and everything else and I'd really have to stand on top of 'em. So that's why I did this actually today. So having to deal with that, you know, they can't figure out how to get in here and mess with any of this stuff. So, instead of having to deal with that, I'll turn it off, and now they can come in here and push every single button that they want to and I'm not gonna have to worry about burning anything up. As far as where you're gonna be able to mount this, it is relatively compact for what it is, especially being that it's pretty much all enclosed for the most part. So you should definitely be able to have a pretty easy spot to mount this up, but in case you're wondering on the size of it, it's going to be a perfect square at two and three quarters of an inch. So two and three quarter wide, two and three quarter long. And as far as how tall it is, so from the base to the top here with the switch in place, it's gonna be two and 15 sixteens of an inch. The studs on the back of it, they're gonna be tinned, as well as the hardware, and that's just to essentially help prevent any corrosion and things of that nature. And the diameter of the studs are gonna be three eights of an inch. So you are gonna need ring terminals large enough to allow you to, you know, have your wire hooked up to the ring terminal and actually fit over that stud. So there's a bunch of 'em available if you don't have any. And you can even grab some right here at etrailer if you need to. Essentially this switch is gonna be designed to work with one circuit, but if you have, let's say, two batteries on different circuits that you want to be able to disconnect, there's a another version of this. It's for that purpose. It's a dual battery isolator switch, and I actually used it several years ago. I had an old jet boat, so, you know, in that case, I had a starting battery, and so I just wanted the motor to be on that battery and then another accessory battery essentially. And you're able to have both of those hooked up to one switch essentially and turn 'em off and on and do what whatever it is that you're trying to do. So that's always an option too. And by using something like that, it will, you know, prevent you from having to actually install and pick up two single switches like this one here. Just to compare this switch to another one, I have one here that's made by SEAFLO, and they're pretty similar, you know, no crazy differences really, especially in terms of the quality of construction. They both seem like they're well-built. This one has some nice posts on it. The knob there turns like you'd want it to, you know, with some resistance and then kind of clicks into place. This one, though, you can't pull the knob off, so I do kinda like the idea about of being able to do that with this one here. But with that said, if you want to mount the SEAFLO one up like we have this one here, it is a little bit bigger, I mean, not a considerable amount but definitely worth noting. So it's gonna take up a little more space, and the actual case, one side has a cutout, so you could kind of rotate it how you wanted to get your wires a good clean straight shot going up in there, but with this case, you know, being able to remove it, you could also flush mount this too if your application would allow you to do so or you feel comfortable doing so. So, you know, you could drill a hole in where you're trying to put this and have it mounted up flush too. So you got a couple options as far as that goes, and, honestly, what one's gonna be best for you I really feel like just depends on your situation. Honestly, I wouldn't hesitate to use either one of these. The switch is not going to come included with any mounting hardware, which is pretty normal. I just use some stainless steel screws to secure it to this compartment side here, and if you do happen to use stainless hardware, it's a good idea to put some anti-seize on the threads. That way it doesn't gall, or even, you know, stainless to aluminum, different types of metals, it'll help protect it against corrosion and things like that. And you know, it's essentially just bolt it to the surface that you're trying to mount it to. And that's it as far as getting it mounted goes. As far as getting this hooked up, you know, everyone's scenario is gonna be a little bit different, but the concept is going to remain the same. So, essentially what you're gonna do on the back of this, you know, you can remove the hardware and you'll have a cable coming from your battery terminal. You would put it on one of the posts, and then whatever that cable was originally going to, you know, let's say, your accessories, for example, you would have to, you know, cut that cable, put a new terminal on it, and put it here. And so essentially this is just interrupting that circuit, and that's really all there is to it. With that said, you know, if you wanna put it on the positive or interrupt the positive side of the battery system, that's fine. That's how I have mine set up. You can do the negative or ground side as well. It kind of just depends on your preference. So, you know, on a boat, nothing is really frame grounded. You know, it all comes back to the battery, and so that's why I did the positive side. On a vehicle or something, whenever, you know, stuff is frame mounted or I'm sorry frame grounded, you could always do it that way too and completely disconnect that side of the circuit. So it's really up to you and the particular application that you plan on installing this on. Other than that, at the end of the day, this could be a quick and easy way to turn off that electrical circuit and help preserve the life of your battery. But with that said, I think that'll about do it for our look at of the Patrick Distribution battery disconnect switch.