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hi everyone

jeff cote here with boating tech talk

and we have another installment of

unboxing and today we're going to be

talking about meritron's digital

switching so this concept of digital

switching is the ability to turn a

circuit on or off from a faraway place

without having all the amperage going to

that faraway place

so in our boats most of us when we're

turning a circuit on or off we're

actually stopping the current from going

or depowering or powering the device and

the current is actually going through

that switch

so for instance on my own boat you know

i have a dc ac panel and all of those

circuit breakers and switches

are effectively stopping uh the current

or disconnecting the voltage from the

battery to the load but that breaker or

switch is actually seeing all the

current going through this concept of

digital switching is there to

lighten both and give more

i guess

flexibility right so that you can have

the shortest run from the battery

to a load

and have the switching of that load

happening somewhere else

so maratron a big player in the industry

has come out with a digital switching

solution and today what we're going to

be doing is an unboxing of this dc load

module

pretty neat um we've worked with digital

switching for probably i would say

eight years now from different vendors

uh but like i said meritron is a big

player in the marine world

and are at the forefront of enemy a2000

and the digitization of boats right so

all about conversion of signals analog

signals to digital or simply digital

from the start all the way to the end

so that integration that play having

multiple systems talk one to another is

part of meritron's sort of

offering and now they're doing digital

switching

okay so the first thing we're gonna look

at is this dc load module and i'm going

to be opening that up

nice and gentle

this is a 12

circuit

dc load module so that means that you

can actually

have 12 programmable breakers

it's got maximum 75 amps um you can do

obviously 8 to 32 volts so basically

without issue you're going to be able to

do

12 and 24 volt systems

12 programmable breakers and 7 different

inputs okay

this is the module that is able to be

controlled remotely and we're going to

be doing another unboxing and you can

see it in another product but here it is

and we'll have a link below but this is

actually the switch module that is

actually also and you need the two so

check out the video for this and then

lastly this product over here

uh can be installed as a bypass so if

these are critical loads that you all

you always want as sort of a backup if

you're not trusting that the digital

switching will work and if something

fails you want to be able to turn that

back like it could be a bilge pump for

example it could be even a windshield

wiper

it could be your nav lights it could be

a water pump something critical that you

can't live without then you might be

thinking about doing a bypass so the

bypass module is another product opening

that we're gonna have on our website so

make sure you check that out and so the

three products work well together so

again first what we're talking about

right now is we're talking about this dc

loan module okay excellent so we're

going to open that up also by the way

this is ignition proof which is great

uh also gives low dumping and also is

reverse polarity protected what's

reverse polarity in case you wonder

reverse polarity is when

people like ourselves

here

make mistakes and we screw up and we

swap the polarity so meaning we put a

negative on a positive

and a negative and a positive on a

negative so we literally inverse the

colors right so on ac circuits um that

would be the neutral is the hot and the

hot as the neutral so

reverse polarity is an issue some

definitely some appliances if you put a

negative on a positive and a positive

especially on the negative

uh you're going to be in trouble and so

having a module that prevents sort of

reverse polarity helps us humans because

we make mistakes even though we try not

to okay

so first comes out with the manual which

is nice always got to read the manual

and they make it easier now they're

doing it i think for a lot of us they're

saying by the way this is the small

version of the manual called the quick

start guide right so you're not too

intimidated so there's that good

packaging

i'm going to take this out slowly and i

want to show you how

relatively small

this module is so the concept here is

that you could have these modules

located throughout the boat right and

then you can control those modules over

enemy a2000 which is nice

so here you go

this is the module so you know you could

have i could see a 40-foot boat having

multiple of these modules three four

five of these modules be in different

parts of the boat maybe one of them is

in the forward section of the boat where

all the births are another one might be

in the salon another one in the fly

bridge another one down in the engine

room maybe another one in the end half

lazarette and so what you're doing is

you're avoiding the need and this is the

key point here about distributed

switching you're avoiding the need to

have everything come back to your panel

right and the builders like this because

it allows us to save weight right so

this is why it's called distributed

switching meaning the switching can

happen in multiple places on your boat

you've got different sort of connection

points here if you can see them right

here all the pins and i'll take the next

cable out which is going to hopefully

remove a little bit of your intimidation

here they have these deutsch connectors

which are really good connection points

and you can see they even have these

pigtails so the pigtails could then in

turn be terminated on a terminal strip

which i'm a big fan of

because it allows for good connections

some of you might be tempted to do

butt connectors i personally

try to avoid doing butt connectors as

much as possible not to say you don't

want to

but it avoid it limits the ability for

you to inspect a circuit when it's

energized so i'm a big fan of terminal

strips a lot of boat builders are fans

of terminal strips as well it's maybe uh

you feel like it's two connections

because you'll need a ring connector on

either side but man oh man does it make

your life easy when you've got troubles

so they've got two of these pigtails

with these deutsch connectors

obviously a little warranty card and

uh a usb with some uh information uh and

programming on it so notice um

again important you've got basically

seven programmable channels so this is

where the connection points are

happening here and here and so you're

going to be able to and as an example

you could have this

in the v-berth area of your boat and you

could be turning off the head

maybe fans light circuits

there could be

maybe a water pump to run a water pump

to power the sink

you could have different again i don't

know bilge pump

all of those are possible and instead of

the circuit going all the way back to

your dc panel

now those circuits are simply terminated

at this module so this is a big big win

okay big win for saving uh wires on

boats

all right let me see make sure i've got

all my notes covered here because i came

prepared this morning um

yeah

there's basically you can handle a

maximum of 10 amp circuits and uh four

of those circuits are five amps at

adults

as well so that brings you to a total of

12 circuits six of them at 10 amps four

of them at five amps which is pretty

cool and some of these circuits can be

parallel to allow for maximum at more

average to go through a circuit this

important thing in some of us and this

is normal by the way some of us go

distributed switching sounds complicated

what happens if this doesn't work

well this is where this bypass module

and we have a box opening for that as

well make sure you check it out we'll

explain sort of the what happens when

something doesn't go well so this is the

failsafe right here so make sure if

you're interested in a failsafe or a

backup check this box opening

that's about it actually with this

device you can actually maybe i want to

here's where actually the positive

so in case you're wondering you would

actually have a relatively large cable

feed this post over here

this post would receive

at least the ability to give you 75 amps

of because this potentially can provide

75 amps so you're going to want a dc

cable positive and remember there's no

negative here right so the negative is

going to every single circuit

right this is actually where

within north america

most builders i'd say probably the large

majority

only switch on the positive side so

you'd have a large cable coming here and

then effectively through the enemy a2000

port which is right here

you'd be connecting the switch module

and so then you'd be able to control

which of these circuits can be energized

and the control of sending current or

voltage from here to these ports is done

via enemy 2000 and we're going to be

talking about that in the next module so

if you've got further questions or share

us about how you've installed this

product on your boat please post down

below

and let us know how it went for you all

right thanks for watching also if you

found this video interesting please

subscribe

um it honestly does it does help us to

know that all this time that we're

investing is actually we're reaching a

lot of voters and i want to thank all of

you for watching thanks for spending

some time with me

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