Installing Master Switch on Camper Trailer | RV Kill Switch

[Music] hey brian here with diy outdoor life today we're going to be installing a master switch on our camper trailer now it makes no difference whether it's a giant toy hauler or a small teardrop trailer like this one a master switch is an essential piece of gear that we have to have on our trailer so i'm going to show you the very very beginner friendly version on how to install one of these switches and we're also going to talk about how to use one of these master switches knowing how to use a master switch can save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars in the life of our trailer so over here we have a completed job it really only took me about five minutes to do this when i turn the switch up to green it's on when i turn it to red it's off now this type of exterior mounted battery is the most typical application for these trailers sometimes the battery is located inside the trailer and we're going to follow the same steps now of course i can get some wire loom and take a couple extra minutes here to clean this job up but this is a fully functioning master switch on this trailer to do this job we need a couple simple tools but we only need to purchase two pieces of material we're going to get a short lead and we're going to get a master switch that just shuts on and off it'll have two lugs on the back some of the more advanced switches have different features but we really don't need to use those for a job like this so i'll include links in my description to both of these products and i'll give you a couple different options with the wire see for my application i only need a very short wire so i'm going to purchase a wire like this as far as the size you only need to match the gauge of the wire that's coming on your camper so in my case this is an eight gauge wire and i'm going to use an eight gauge wire i see a lot of people going with very large double out wires there's no advantage to that in this situation and in fact they're harder to work with and can even apply more pressure on the switch when we're doing this sort of job so you're going to look for the number that comes on your wire it'll either say eight gauge like this one does or it'll say eight awg or american wire gauge so either way we're looking to match the numbers if you can't find a match look for a lower number wire so i could use a six wire here instead of an eight but there's no sense going with a two and a zero or a double off to demonstrate how we install one of these switches i placed another battery up on top now your camper is going to come with a red and a black lead a positive lead and a negative lead and as you might imagine you connect the red to the red and the black to the black and your camper now has a dc circuit when we install a switch like this we're going to be installing it along the positive side of that circuit so when you turn the switch off it discontinued the flow of electrical force through the camper there's going to be a couple reasons why this is a critical thing to be able to do with your rigs and we'll get into that in a second now one way to place this switch along the red wire feeding your camper would be to cut this wire and put new termination points on it to install into the switch an easier way to do that is to actually get a short wire like this that's pre-made it's inexpensive and makes the job a lot easier so the first thing i'm going to do is connect the camper wire to the one terminal and screw the nut down now i'm going to take my new wire slide it over top of the stud put the lock washer and then tighten the nut down the next thing you're going to do is tighten these two nuts down snugly now if you were doing this for a living or doing it every day you'd probably want to use a torque wrench they're usually about 110 inches per pound but it's you're more than fine here just using a normal ratchet and snugging these up firmly so now with our two wires attached to our switch we have the wire coming from our camper and our short lead here we're going to attach the short lead to the positive terminal on our battery and whether it's a wing nut or a bolt we're going to fasten this down securely and now our switch is fully functioning so now that we have a switch that's functioning properly we want to find a good location to place the switch one of my favorite spots on these outdoor locations is right under the handle here now there's a number of ways that we can do this effectively and like i told you before i'm going to clean this up a little bit when i'm done what i want you to do is remove the bottom panel from your switch you don't want to remove the sides and you don't want to remove the top even though this is a waterproof switch the last thing that we want to do is create a reservoir in here that fills with water you don't want to open the front panel because if you're driving in the winter your tires are blowing water and snow right in this direction most the time this is not going to cause a problem but i have seen it actually complete the circuit and break the switch so this is a good tip to keep and make sure that the water can just drain freely out the bottom the next is finding the way that we're actually going to fasten it to the box now these switches come with hardware that you can drill holes through the box and then screw them with a small bolt and a nut next i'm going to show you a couple alternatives and what we have to look out for when we're doing that okay now i took this old battery box out to demonstrate how we're able to attach this switch in different ways now i like to fix the switch under the handle here on the bottom now to do that is simple we can place the switch what that's in a place that's most easy for us if we're using a short wire like this you can place the battery in any orientation that you want so there's no need to move the switch to deal with the terminal placement this is reversible so the next thing that i'm going to do is find a way to attach it to this but if we use the hardware that comes with this i want you to realize that this has a pretty sharp end so if i let this sit in the battery box and then drive down the road for miles there's a chance that i'm actually going to etch a hole through the side of the battery i've seen it happen before nothing sets on fire the battery spills its electrolyte and then it's no good anymore so to prevent that from happening i'm going to show you a couple tips and tricks when mounting this to the side the first trick is how i did this one here i went with the threaded side out and left the smoother side on the inside even when i do that i like to put a small plastic shim behind this bolt behind the head of this bolt so that it doesn't scratch the internal battery i use little flexible plastic like this you can really use anything but if you're going to do that what i want you to do when you service your camper each year i want you to inspect this and make sure that a hole isn't developing from the head of the bowl most the time you're fine for decades using a piece of plastic now whether you go threaded side in or threaded side out sometimes there's enough space around the battery to actually find a whole piece of plywood to put in the end now this is going to be a done deal you're definitely not going to wear through the plywood another advantage that i have found in doing this is sometimes you can ditch the factory hardware and actually use stainless steel screws and screw it into the plywood this makes for a secure finish but what you want to make sure is that you measure ahead of time because i don't want the head of the screws coming through the plywood either the next tip is the easiest you can use double-sided tape if your switch has a nice flat back like this like a vhb tape and stick it anywhere you want on the box most of the time it makes a really good permanent bond to the side of your box but even if it falls off these wires are going to catch it and it's not you're not going to lose your switch okay so to review this install you have the wire from the camper going to the switch and a short wire going from the switch to the positive terminal this is all that's required to create a master switch on your camper how you install it is up to you i showed you a couple different ways to do it this way and caution that you really don't want to expose sharp pieces of metal inside your battery box when you're bouncing down the road now we're going to talk about why this is so important and how you're supposed to use these master switches you see with dc or direct current electrical systems the electrical force actually flows through the wires with ac or alternating current it vibrates it's different ways for wires to conduct electrical force so in these dc systems the electrical force moves through the positive powers the converter and all of your lights and fans in the camper and then it passes back through the chassis or the frame to the black side or the negative side this black wire over here is actually just attaching to the frame the grounding uses the frame like a big wire so when i place this switch on the positive side it's like turning the spigot off on water i'm stopping the electrical flow to the camper now when this camper is in storage this is really important this camper will drain this battery down in like three or four days so when i have this switch i can store the camper for a few weeks without having to apply a trickle charger that's a major major feature when you're storing it now when you're out boondocking and you're using this camper without shore hookups i want to keep this switch in off position as much as possible see in this demonstration the electric is flowing through the camper in an ideal world as much would come back as what left especially if i'm not using the camper but what happens is things like your co2 detector smoke alarm stereo system they're stealing some of that flow when they're being uh whether they're being used or not so less juice comes back to the battery than what leaves and the battery draws down so when i'm using the camper i actually shut this off after i get up in the morning at night i'm using the lights the fan maybe i'm listening to music charging my phone when i get up i shut the camper off having it off for let's say 16 17 hours a day is going to save your battery life in a way that could double the amount of time you spend out in a boondocking experience if you have something like a 12-volt refrigerator i would use a portable power station or you can even run a dedicated line off your battery these are more advanced techniques that i can show you in a later video for today i wanted to show you how to create this interrupter how to use this interrupter and show you that you don't need to buy a bigger battery if you can learn to be a little bit more efficient with a switch like this you also won't have to replace your battery as much when you're not drawing it down every single day so a switch like this more than pays for itself use the link in my description to find the switch that i test and use as well as some good safe wire for this application now this is the point in the video where i start begging for you to subscribe and most of you sign off but just realize when you click that subscribe button you support the channel it's an unmonetized channel so when you click that button it really helps us out it promotes us and allows us to create more content i hope you appreciated this tip and if you have any questions or you do yours a different way shoot me a line in the comment section i'd be happy to respond thank you very much have a great day

Channel: DIY Outdoor Life

Views: 109,431

Keywords: camper master switch, installing master switch camper, battery switch, battery kill switch, battery disconnect switch, how to install a kill switch, battery switch installation, battery switch for rv, battery disconnect switch installation, battery disconnect switch rv, Battery disconnect switch installation rv, installing a battery disconnect switch rv, harbor freight battery disconnect switch installation, braxton creek bushwhacker, ampper battery switch installation

Id: Qn1gx3ZG9S0

Length: 13min 35sec (815 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 15 2021