In talking with the Deere guys at my local dealer, they suggested installing a battery disconnect switch to keep the battery in my hoe from running down if I don't start it for a while. They indicated that the later model hoes have systems that talk to satellites, transmitting data to Deere command central that will eventually kill the battery. I ordered the switch and the mounting bracket. My hoe has two batteries. Battery 1's "+" attaches to the battery with a clamp over post. That cable then daisy chains to the same kind of clamp on battery 2. Another 2/0 cable emerges from that second clamp, and goes to the starter motor. A third cable emerges from clamp 2, and goes to a fuse, and then feeds the electronic doohickies on the tractor (lights, horn, wiper etc). If I don't switch the starter, I can easily add the switch to interrupt the feed for the electronic doo dads. If I switch both, I have to figure how to get a daisy chained cable made that has a battery clamp on one end, a second battery clamp in the middle, and a 3/8 lug on the other end. Can this be easily made? Or should I do separate 2/0 cables from each battery's positive to the stud on the switch, tie them together there, and then run cables to the fuse and the starter? My gut tells me that it might be a useful thing to cut off the starter if the tractor electronics are shut off. It would also be a bit of a security feature, in that someone couldn't start the tractor without doing the switch. Ideas?
My New Holland came from the factory with a cutoff switch. I do not use it. But, it is wired such that the 2 battery negative cables go to it. If you dig around on this site, you will prolly an equal number of people that are in favor of the cutoff as those opposed. Bottom line is that a battery maintainer will keep the battery in peak state of charge, and you will not have to worry about those computer do dads sucking the power out of the battery. These maintainers also greatly expand the life of the battery. I am thinking a good maintainer is not more than the cost of the cutoff switch and the connections you will have to make, and they will not extend the batteries life...Just my 2 cents.
If your hoe has two batteries, do you have to upsize the battery maintainer? How big a maintainer do you need?
Manual battery disconnect goes between (-) and frame. That kills everything from power. Easy, peasy.
Exactly.
This is what I have and it works fine. It charges then goes into maintain on my 2-battery hoe, usually in an hours timeframe, if the battery has not been connected for some time. They also make a solar model if power is a problem. On my tractor, as stated above, the shutoff is factory. I can see the advantages of having a shutoff on a jobsite, as the shutoff is factory located under a locking cover. The antitheft benefit is real, if it is installed in the right place. The right place, in my case is a pain to undo the cover every time I want to start my machine. For a homeowner tractor, I would think security is less of an issue, and keeping the battery is more the focus....another 2 cents worth...big spender this week...LOL
Yep! Picture below is what we used for anything that did not come with factory battery disconnect switch. A few years before I retired company lost a few machines around the world from battery caused fires mostly on weekends or nights. Then the orders from the top came down all equipment had to have these installed. Also no two pieces of equipment could be parked less than 10 feet apart as some fires jumped from machine with crappy wiring to other machines near by. Guess having good maintenance programs to inspect equipment for faulty wiring was not an idea they had thought of, in over forty years at or plant I never saw an electrical failure destroy a machine. Well take that back, lightning got the plant a couple times!
I like having battery disconnects, but not so much so that I have added them to things that didn't already have them. They are nice to have when you are doing electrical work and can turn it off off so you don't accidently arc a wrench to a starter post or something like that. I do think battery tenders are better at prolonging the battery life as opposed to a disconnect.
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The battery disconnect on my NH was not easily accessible and never used. I figured it was one more place for a faulty connection to occur so when I had new cables made it came off and went in the spare parts bin. My tractor has the single battery. I use a battery tender solar maintainer on a 30W solar panel. My tractor only has radio memory draw so not much to kill it. I expect my solar setup would maintain any reasonable draw from a factory setup.
yeah, New Holland doesn't have the friendliest hood configuration. Our 110, and 95 had their master in the cab under the dash.
If you ever have a starter solenoid that sticks in the crank position the disconnect will save your starter. Have you ever tried to get a battery cable off while smoke is pouring from an overheated starter. Probably happens more up here in the cold north.
Disconnects always go in the ground side
Remember on some of the newer stuff with def you can't just shut the disconnect off until the def system has cycled the fluid back out of the lines.
Which solar maintainer did you buy?
How long should I wait before turning off the power? Can I hear that system doing its thing?
That’s unusual, at least in the ham radio and electrical world. You never switch the negative. In fact, the instructions provided by Deere service indicate that I should switch the positive. Your situation might be different. I don’t rightly know.
I heard about the solar chargers/tenders from Swetz probably about a year ago, just after I bought 2 new batteries. Got a cheap, middle-of-the-road one from Harbor Freight and she's fired up, pretty much instantly every time, except when it was about 10 degrees here. I can't say for sure that the tender is helping since the batteries are pretty new but it fires up faster than it did previously, and I didn't have to recharge the batteries after I wore them down with the attempts at cold starting.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Q820UK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
All of my Deere TC54H, 544J, & 544K have a disconnect switch on the battery ground. My Komatsu WA270-7 & WA270-8 have a disconnect on the battery ground. Every one of my Caterpillar excavators has a disconnect on the battery ground, as do all of my Takeuchi excavators.
I don't know why you wouldn't disconnect the ground in Ham radio. In AC wiring, you never disconnect the NEUTRAL, which is grounded, but that's entirely different. In vehicles you always disconnect the ground first, because if you touch the ground to ground, there's no big spark. But if you accidentally touch the positive to ground then there is a big spark. Ground disconnect fails to ground, and your battery goes dead eventually, and you lose the benefit of the disconnect. Positive disconnect fails to ground and you have a fire.
Any of our newer Cat stuff has a light beside the master switch that tells you when you can turn it off. Not sure how Volvo works, even after you kill the power, you can hear the DEF draining back to the tank. I think the trucks drain back with air. I think most stuff after a certain year comes with a master switch standard anyway. I assume any electronics in the cab still have power as you don't have to reset anything. Even the older loaders keep time and presets on the radio, and dash with the master off.
I would really like to see a copy of these instructions. I have worked on thousands of pieces of equipment and have never heard or seen a disconnect on the positive side of the system other than the master solenoids on a lot of 24VDC equipment but those are not a true disconnect. Not saying there isn't something out there but I have never seen it.
It's funny this comes up as I was in process of putting a video together on the subject. I have some photos of a couple of Komatsu battery disconnect switches. These are installed on nearly all Komatsu brand heavy equipment. They are the type that disconnect the batteries when the key is turned off. Do you notice a difference? The one on the left side disconnects the batteries on the negative side. The one on the right has insulators installed on the base of the switch and disconnects the batteries on the positive side. What makes this more confusing is that Komatsu changed suppliers and the switches look completely different now. On top of all that, they have added a manually operated key switch that you can use to shut off the electrical system as soon as the green light that indicates the DEF is finished being pumped back into the tank goes out.
If electrons are negatively charged, they come from the negative terminal of the battery. The "ground" cable conducts all the power in the machine. Instructions to disconnect a battery always begin with the "ground" cable because you can't arc it out with the wrench that way. I believe negative ground works as well as positive ground that was once common. All of the battery disconnects I've ever seen have ground cable switches.
Did you look at the photos above? One is a positive side disconnect.
I have to disagree there fellers. If there is a wire shorting somewhere then the battery will still go flat. Fitting at switch to the (+) stops that happening.
Gee Ma, electrons only flow from a battery in a complete circuit. They move from the negative post usually these days to the frame of the machine. Interrupting either cable stops the flow of electrons. I don't believe it matters which you interrupt, but stopping near the battery connection to frame eliminates the risk of a short circuit from positive causing a problem. I have seen positive cables passing through sharp holes in sheet metal inches from their end. If the "ground" is disconnected no harm.
You wanna try that again?
Most all our equipment is Negative disconnect. We do have a 90 Pete with positive side switch. We use a few plow trucks for 2/3rds of the year and I usually just pull the neg (-) off. while they sit for summer. I've had a parasitic draw on one of the trucks draining battery 100% dead, happened 2 years in a row. I pulled the positive connection last season and it fired right up this year.
I was always taught to remove the ground first on a car battery, and then the positive cable. For AC power it was your hot wire first, then your neutral, then ground last. Most master switches I have seen are to disconnect the ground. Perhaps in some electronic situations, maybe the manufacturer requires a positive disconnect, like the switches shown from Komatsu?
Install a disconnect where it is the most convenient for you to use it. You just need to open the circuit. A battery that is dirty on top or between the terminals can cause it to go dead. Rare but it does happen. Just keep things clean.
Not as rare as you think, and a good point as well. I have seen plenty of batteries that you could read a voltage across the top of the battery. For sure, no matter how the cutoff is wired, it will not stop the battery from going dead if this condition exists!
Btw, Deere specifies to leave power on for 10 minutes to let the Def system to do its thing. Turning power off early could freeze up the system.
My father, like all fathers was older than me. He remembered rubber battery boxes, glass, and finally plastic. Stored batteries were NEVER allowed to sit on a gravel, or concrete floor. He looked for a cool dry place, cleaned the top of a battery. Batteries were removed from vehicles that wouldn't be used in winter, moved to a dry cellar & charged monthly.
Ben Franklyn didn't at first know which direction electrons flow. He thought they flowed from a place of surplus "+" to a place of deficit "-". He later discovered electrons negatively charged do the traveling. They leave the negatively charged terminal of a battery, return to the positively charged terminal. It makes little difference which cable you interrupt, but if you interrupt non grounded cable, do it very close to the battery.
Hi Mobiltech, I know this is an old thread but I thought I would reach out. I had that exact thing happen to me last week. All of a sudden while digging there was a weird noise from the front of the case 580C and smoke coming from the starter. I had to disconnect the battery to make the motor stop trying to start. So I guess it is possible for a starter to fail while the engine is running? As of not, I cannot reconnect the battery without a huge spark and the starter clicking. Time for a new starter I guess. Thanks, Ray
You may have a short in wiring, faulty key start switch or stuck contacts in start relay. Disconnecting the start exciter wire will indicate wether you issue is in the starter or elsewhere.
thanks Cliffy,not being too good with electrical issues, can you tell me what and where the exciter wire would be? thanks a lot
It will be the smaller gauge wire. That gets its power from the ignition switch and energies the start solenoid.
See this link. HeavyEquipmentForums
Thanks Cliffy,, I will dig deeper into that.
perfect,,,thank you Marcus