Save Your Battery! Polaris General Kill Switch Installation - UTV maintenance / UTV storage
This winter I found out when we would leave our Polaris General parked for a few weeks, we'd come back to find a battery without enough charge to start our machine, or a couple times we left our com system on which drained our battery even faster. So I decided to add a kill switch / battery cut off switch to take care of the problem once and for all.
This is a pretty simple job that anyone should be able to do. The parts I used are listed below. Simply put, an in-line switch of sufficient amperage is placed between the negative battery terminal and the ground of the machine. Why the negative side? It's going to be the easiest place to install it, and it's probably the safest / best way to do it too. NHRA and some racing organizations require the cut off switch to be on the positive side, mainly because they are more concerned about crashes and fires. Some other racing organizations are fine with it on the negative side. The main thing is, we want to be able to kill any power drain on the battery when the machine is not in use and putting it on the negative side accomplishes this is the simplest and safest manner.
ALL OF THESE ITEMS I PURCHASED FROM MY LOCAL AUTO PARTS STORE - WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE CUTOFF SWITCH. I put the links below just so you can see what each item is.
60" 4 gauge negative battery cable from my local OReilly auto (I couldn't find a link to the one I bought - this is 72" which is a bit longer than you may need. Remember the length will vary based on where you put your switch and your machine)
www.amazon.com/East-Penn-0081...
72" 4 gauge battery cable with two 3/8" leads
www.amazon.com/Assembled-Batt...
3/8 battery cable lug (on the Polaris General - the lug of the wire leading to the accessory bus bar is not large enough. You can try drilling it larger like I did, but it will probably break and you'll have to put a new lug on anyways) - ***Note, the link below is for 10 pieces. I'd go to your local auto parts store - a pack of two is a couple bucks.
www.amazon.com/SELTERM-Gauge-...
to solder on the lug I used a propane torch, a thicker gauge electrical solder and some flux, and 1/2" shrink tubing. There are a lot of videos on YT about how to crimp and solder a battery lug on - let me know if you have questions though. I wound up carefully using a bolt cutters to crimp the lug because I didn't want to remove the entire cable from the vehicle. You need some good force to crimp those things on.
350 amp cut off switch
www.summitracing.com/parts/pc...
For mounting the switch I used 1 1/2" 10-24 (3/16 diameter) cap screws, lock washers and nuts.
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Thanks for sharing this great little video !!! I have a 2007 sportsman 500 ho but don' t get out as often as I would like to so I am having dead battery issues when I do try to go out and play !!! This I am thinking will solve my problem !!! Thanks again for sharing !!!
With all the electronics and accessories now this is the way. Glad you were helped by it!
Another advantage of having a cutoff is if you have an electrical short/fire. Opening the ground you stop any further damage.
For sure!
Great video! Just out of curiosity, the ground wire that is attached to the new battery connection, where did you connect that if at all, when I connect it with other ground cables it overrides my switch
Thanks!!! Ok, so now I only have a single cable connected to the negative battery terminal which runs to one terminal of the kill switch. From the other side of the kill switch, I ran a cable back to the frame ground behind the battery, and reconnected all those cables there. Then, from that same kill switch terminal, I connected the ground cable which runs forward to the accessory bar. On my machine, that one was directly connected to the negative battery post - and until I hooked that up yo the kill switch it overrode my switch too. Does that answer your question? Feel free to message me on FB or asknwf@gmail and I can give you my number or video chat
Thanks for sharing. My thoughts are a kill switch would be beneficial for security purposes, keep the bad guys from stealing my ride when I'm overnighting. If I'm storing this in my garage at home, I would use a battery tender to keep my batter charged. I get my General this weekend, and the first thing I am going to add is a battery tender because it will sit more often than not.
For sure. Security is another added benefit. I don’t have power right now where I store my General so short of running long extension cords from the house this is the best I can do. A couple people have shared some ideas and down the road I do think I’ll be doing something like that and possibly adding a separate accessory battery.
And congrats on the new machine!!! 🥳
I've been kicking around the idea of doing this to the Defender. I like that it adds one more level of security as well.
Absolutely. You can “hide” the switch or even if you have it in plain view and pull the key it’s another thing someone would have to deal with.
I need someone to answer this question my truck 6 for 2 days the battery dies I have to jump it off I put a battery cut off switch on now on the positive side but when I switch it off my truck won't crank it's like it's losing power from the computer how to solve that please someone
Looks like the plastic around the switch was sturdy after installation. Did it flex around that point too much? As you were doing the install, it made me think that a chunk of 1/4” ABS plastic underneath (as a base plate) would add support. But only if needed. By the way, it’s not a real project until you’ve been to the store 3-4 times.
😆 isn’t that the truth! The plastic was solid. Depending where you mounted it, might not be a bad idea to add support but the console there was very sturdy. No flex at all.
With the switch in the off position,can you still charge the battery with a trickle charger?Sorry if I'm asking a stupid question🤷♂️
Not at all! Yes you can trickle charge - just hook the charger directly to the battery terminals.
@@TheNorthwoodsFamily Thank you for responding so quickly👍I will be doing this,when I do my complete electrical & secondary battery setup.
Do I hook all the wires from my negative terminal on my battery to the switch
Yes. All wires from the negative terminal go to one of the switch posts directly. Then from the other post of the switch, continue the wires to where they had previously grounded. On my machine one went to the frame, the other went to the winch I think.
I think I'm going to install 2 kill switches, one for just my winch and one for everything else.
I’ve thought about setting up a separate battery myself just for the accessories and then keeping the starting battery separate.
Wouldn't you want to cut off right at the battery to insure no drain from other parts unknown? Like to see how you attached it to the battery.. saw you wrestle it in and out of the hole you have it in but didn't see exactly what it was that you did [how you hooked up to the battery and all]. I'm trying to cut the battery from parasitic accessories in a volvo wagon [I know its a lame excuse for a 20 year old wagon but ya... I really need to isolate the battery from the rest of the car]. lol
Volvos are awesome. Things never die! I ran a cable from the negative post of the battery to the switch so I could mount the switch up front. I went Negative terminal to cable, to switch post, other switch post had a cable going to the frame ground as well as a cable going to the accessory/winch ground. I have seen people mount them right on the battery or right next to it too but I didn’t want mine there. Where you mount it isn’t important, you just need to make sure the switch interrupts the ground cable before it goes anywhere else.
Wash that machine! 😁
😂 I know right? She looks pretty good now but she’s been sitting in the garage for the last month 😢
Well I'm not the only one that has issues I guess.
It was getting pretty annoying. This did the trick.
So when you do this. You wont lose all the information in the Sidexside? Have to set the clock and everything on cluster every time you cut it off??
Nope. No different than disconnecting the battery terminal when you’re replacing it. No data is lost.