When I bought my 2011 John Deere 410J, the dealer said they just replaced the batteries because they were dead when they went out to get the machine ready for me. Ever since then, I have made it a point to turn off the batteries when parking it for the night. My dad, who has run heavy equipment my entire life, said he has never had to do that. I have been paranoid about killing the batteries as they are expensive, and I don't run the machine everyday, and it may sit for weeks at a time without being started. So my question is, does anybody else shut their batteries off after use? Am I wasting my time? Also, it is a pain to do when the hood release is on one side of the machine and the kill switch is under the hood on the opposite side. Why wouldn't they just put it on the same side? Anyway, just curious.
My 92 f450 has a battery switch as does my 2000 f450 and I kill them at the end of the day
If a machine has a switch I always shut it off when I park it.
The shut off switch is there for a reason. Sure beats having a battery run down from parasitic draw. Also less chance of an electrical fire if a wire gets frayed.
I like to shut them off. Prevents a lot of problems. The roof. The roof. The roof is on fire. Knowwhatimsayin?
I hauled my skid steer to a place to load scrap iron. There is a big older building there I ask and its ok to store it inside the building . I wish it had a switch and I thought about removing a bat cable but I haven't yet. The building is being rented . If something happened and it caused a fire that would be a mess. I haven't done this before if I did it a lot I think I would put a switch on it and check on how insurance would work if something did happen. In the past if something had a switch and it was going to set for a while it would be turned off.
I don't, but it is a darn good idea.
I don't and I eliminated the cutoff switch when I replaced the cables. I might should put it back on and use it. I have a diesel generator with a cutoff switch I have to use every time I shut it down or it will be dead next time I need it.
Installed one on my hoe and always try and remember to use it after having a dead battery when I went to use it one morning .
Its good policy for electrical fires and rodent caused incidents. also any parasitic draw down on a battery uses up useful life of battery's only so many charge cycles in them. they also sulfate faster at low voltage
I usually keep a solar charger on mine to keep it charged. I had some troubles over the winter but I got the panels cleaned and back in working condition so it seems for now my hoe is ready when I am. Fired it up this morning after letting it sit a couple weeks and it fired right off. The solar charger was moved to a boat battery a week ago. I move it back and forth to keep more than one battery charged with one panel. I have 3 panels on the roof that I alternate between different batteries and machines. On the subject of fire I have bought some parts from a salvage yard and was surprised at the number of burned up machines there. Seems it is the main cause of them being totaled.
Showed a friend a Cole Hershee 2484-16 Disconnect switch that I installed on a whole fleet of trucks. He said he didn't need anything like that on his gear. A few months later while doing a fuel filter change on his Cat D6D Dozer that was leaking fuel on everything with the filter off, he dropped a wrench that hit the positive post of the solenoid and frame at same time. In a second the flames were high and fuel still leaking. Burn't to the ground right in front of him. Nothing left. A disconnect installed on the ground cable to battery ground, shut off would of been no fire. Only a $ 60000 machine, lost about $30000 after insurance claim. Live and learn. Simon C
I was trained to use the battery disconnect ANY time I'm working on the mosheeen. I was also trained to switch it off when I leave it. Even if the rig has no switch, I won't get to work on it too deep at all before I'll pull the bat neg cable.
Yes. Standard practice for us. We have been upgrading equipment to keypad coded machines but still have a few standard keyed machines. In addition to battery drain, a disconnect switch keeps other trades from "borrowing" our equipment on jobs. Many have Cat keys but few have a Cat disconnect key and even fewer know where to look for it.
Trucks---because of all the electronic devises, the parasitic draw kills batteries much faster when left on. Years back trucks averaged 4 to 5 years on a set, now about 2.5 to 3. But like CD posted--too many items to short out and go----POOF.