Installed aux battery VSR, need advice

[Californio]

I just installed a marine voltage-sensing relay to manage the house/vehicle batteries. It's a BEP brand and I liked it because it takes 8AWG leads and handles 125 continuous/400 peak amps. So far so good. It's also submersible for those swimcro expeditions...

However, the fine print tells me the VSR draws .01 amp continuously from the vehicle battery, and recommends a manual disconnect switch to prevent draining the starter battery. If I do this I know I'll either forget to turn it on or forget to turn it off.

And wait a minute, I thought I did this so it would be automatic! If you're going to install a manual switch, why have a relay?

How much difference does .01 amps make in current draw? Should I just leave it with the slow draw?

[PDXWesty]

That's an extremely small draw. Doing some math, it would draw down your battery 20 amp-hrs over 2000 hours. That's 83 days. If you drive your van regularly it shouldn't be a problem.
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89 Westy 2.1 Auto

[Californio]

Thanks, exactly what I wanted to hear. I think I'll keep monitoring the starter battery overnight and see how much it drops. I guess in an emergency it would always be possible to jumper the batteries anyway.