...ONE SHOULD ONLY USE THE "BOTH" POSITION IN AN EMERGENCY, where an emergency is defined as NEITHER battery alone will crank the engine. Keeping the switch in BOTH position under certain battery conditions can ruin the batteries.
, I NEVER use Both unless neither battery on it
Aside from battery damage, I thought that having it set to both, cranking the motor and attempting to let the alternator charge both at the same time to damage the diode in the alternator? I was under the impression that if you needed to parallel the batteries to start the motor you should parallel them, wait 10-20 minutes, disable or switch off the combine or parallel and then attempt to start as normal.
a few things wrong with this...
first,paralleling batteries will not damage alternator diodes,what damages alternator diodes is "open fielding",which is turning the battery switch to the off position while the engine is running,do this,and you just wasted the alternator.running the battery switch in the "both" position,it puts a strain on the alternator,it will not damage it,it parallels the batteries.ruining the batteries
? new one on me,never heard that one before
?i think perhaps you mean,a bad battery will take a good one out
? that is true,a bad battery will discharge a good one,meaning,let's say you have this set up,#1 battery is dead,as in dead,you throw that switch in "both" and you light up the engine,you take a ride over to the spot you wanna fish,shut down and start drifting,you left the battery switch in "both",guess what,no power
?? how can that be
? a bad battery will take a good battery out...
battery switches,for the most part are "make before break",meaning,the switch will make contact with the other posrtion of the switch before it breaks current with another portion-again,"make before break".the system "retriever" mentioned is not really the best choice.it's best to be able to control all the power from batteries and it's best to be able to shut off that power.one thing that should allways be "hot" on a boat is the auto bilge switch,for dual battery systmes,i like to see 2 bilge pumps,one on each battery,this assures you of having at least one "hot" pump.if you're running your boat offshore,i reccomend you look into setting your boat up with a seperated and dedicated battery system.it assures you of avoiding the "no crank" situation.
connections,you never want connections for equipment,including battery chargers,connected to batteries,make all connections behind the battery switch,for feeds,and use "ground busses" for the grounds,the only connections you want at a battery is battery cables,use a seperate battery cable to feed a ground buss.never use "wing nuts" on battery terminals,use lock nuts only,be sure to use waterproof inline fuse holders for the auto bilge leads...
this isn't brain surgurey,but,there's a little more to this than meets the eye...
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