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hi youtubers jeff cote here with  ask pys so we've got a question from a  fellow voter  uh this voter is using a battery  combiner he's got questions  so jeff i can i wire the positive leads  of an acr acr stands for  automatic automatic combiner relay which  is effectively  a battery combiner right it allows two  batteries  to be connected in parallel  automatically  through a device like this acr is a  marketing term from  blue seas other companies call them  voltage sense relays  it doesn't matter it's a bunch of words  really but the most important thing is  what does it do  it basically puts your batteries in  parallel whenever there's a charging  voltage and disconnects them whenever  there's lower so charging voltage for a  12 volt battery might be 13 3  and it's going to disconnect at 12 8 or  12 9.  okay so basically be generous when you  have a lot  and be selfish when you don't that's  basically what this device does  and the question is where do you connect  this right so  he's asking me do i connect directly to  the battery or can i connect it to the  battery switch where basically some  batteries remember  are going to have and i've got another  little sort of prop here  and i'm going to show you this is a  standard battery switch that we have on  our boats you know an off one  two both or one and two battery switch  and if you look at this at the back here  you'll notice there's three posts  there's battery one battery two and a  common  and as a boater if you're trying to  avoid actually having to put the battery  switch on both whenever there's a  charging voltage which could be  maybe you have a single output inverter  charger and you want to share  what's happening on battery one with the  hat with the engine or you've got an  alternator and you've got a single  output alternator which we all do  um and you want to share what's  happening in the engine battery the  house battery right now you have to do  that manually  constantly reminding yourself that you  have to put it on to parallel or both  or one and two which is all again the  same words describing the same thing  but the dilemma is that ultimately  sometimes as voters we forget to turn  that switch  back off from combined or all or both or  one and two  and so the way to avoid us having to be  part of the system all the time  is to use a battery combiner so the  question from wayne is well where do i  connect this  right do i connect these posts  to the unswitch or switch distribution  and if you guys are in gals are looking  at my diagrams on my website and we have  these conceptual diagrams  you'll notice that battery combiners  have to always be connected  to the unswitched side unswitch means a  direct connection to the battery  even when the battery switches off this  device is always connected to the  battery  now again remember the perils and i  remind this  to everyone ignore my advice about  unswitch and switch distribution  at your peril okay your world is going  to be magical if you for this  if you disregard my advice so this  absolutely needs to be connected  effectively to the positive post  on switch of both battery banks it can  never ever ever be switched  okay so that's really really important  so connect the battery combiner to the  unswitched distribution  it could be a battery switch it could be  these posts right here  right battery post one and two because  they're directly connected to the  battery  so you can literally have an acr just  above it  right but you're going to need to fuse  those leads because you this is only  rated for maybe 120 amps  so you've got to fuse the leads coming  into here and when you fuse a battery  combiner you don't fuse the leads at the  battery combiner  you fuse the lease at the beginning of  the wires connecting to the battery  combiner  because the battery is the endless  source and you have to connect  or fuse both sides that's also really  important both sides of the wire have to  be fused  so that's my answer on battery combiners  and where to connect them  thank you for watching this video if you  have any questions please ask it below  or use our contact form  on our website and don't forget to  subscribe  so that you can keep having these weekly  and we're producing almost four videos a  week now  and thanks again for watching