Circuit breaker in wiring
What is the purpose of a circuit breaker in my cable running from the battery isolator to the house battery.
Forum Discussion
It protects the wiring in both directions...
Your battery is capable of producing 100s of Dc Amps if the wiring is shorted to frame ground between the Battery terminal and the converter/charger DC terminal. Most wiring will not withstand 100s of Dc Amps and the wire will starting getting very hot and eventually start an actual flame. Shorts to frame ground can be caused by frayed wiring or in some cases some failed component inside the converter/charger that may shored to frame to frame ground. If the battery itself becomes shorted inside the battery (which can happen) the battery will continue to heat up and explode. I witnessed one such explosion back when i was a kid in the 50s watching a gas station do one of those quick charge things they did back in the day of putting 50VDC Charger with 100-150AMPS capacity across the battery terminals for their 30-minute "quick charge" method. The top of this battery went into the air some 20-feet or so and sprayed battery fluids all over the motor of the car and the local area... Sure glad technology has changed since then haha...
The older wiring schemes always had a in-line high amperage fuse located here just inches away from the battery terminal. The newer trailer wiring scheme is now using circuit breakers in place of the in-line fuses. I have seen both auto-reset and manual reset type circuit breakers being used here. I am not all that thrilled with the auto-reset circuit breakers used in this situation as they will open the circuit when over loaded and then after a short period of time will automatically reset the circuit again. If the short problem still exists then this auto reset circuit breaker will continue to do this action again and again until the short gets removed, switched out, or burned out of the circuit. Each time this does this more damage is possible to your setup... The manual reset type circuit will stay in the tripped position until you manually push the reset button on the circuit breaker.
I like this type of manual reset circuit breaker mounted to the wall close to the battery terminals... These come in all rated sizes and you want some probably double what the normal DC current in this path will be both when charging your batteries or when using the batteries for loads. Rated at 100AMPS is a popular size for most installations... Some folks will find the Current rating of the wiring being used and be just alittle higher than the wiring rating
google image
It's all about keeping your system from burning up your beloved trailer...
Roy Ken
Your battery is capable of producing 100s of Dc Amps if the wiring is shorted to frame ground between the Battery terminal and the converter/charger DC terminal. Most wiring will not withstand 100s of Dc Amps and the wire will starting getting very hot and eventually start an actual flame. Shorts to frame ground can be caused by frayed wiring or in some cases some failed component inside the converter/charger that may shored to frame to frame ground. If the battery itself becomes shorted inside the battery (which can happen) the battery will continue to heat up and explode. I witnessed one such explosion back when i was a kid in the 50s watching a gas station do one of those quick charge things they did back in the day of putting 50VDC Charger with 100-150AMPS capacity across the battery terminals for their 30-minute "quick charge" method. The top of this battery went into the air some 20-feet or so and sprayed battery fluids all over the motor of the car and the local area... Sure glad technology has changed since then haha...
The older wiring schemes always had a in-line high amperage fuse located here just inches away from the battery terminal. The newer trailer wiring scheme is now using circuit breakers in place of the in-line fuses. I have seen both auto-reset and manual reset type circuit breakers being used here. I am not all that thrilled with the auto-reset circuit breakers used in this situation as they will open the circuit when over loaded and then after a short period of time will automatically reset the circuit again. If the short problem still exists then this auto reset circuit breaker will continue to do this action again and again until the short gets removed, switched out, or burned out of the circuit. Each time this does this more damage is possible to your setup... The manual reset type circuit will stay in the tripped position until you manually push the reset button on the circuit breaker.
I like this type of manual reset circuit breaker mounted to the wall close to the battery terminals... These come in all rated sizes and you want some probably double what the normal DC current in this path will be both when charging your batteries or when using the batteries for loads. Rated at 100AMPS is a popular size for most installations... Some folks will find the Current rating of the wiring being used and be just alittle higher than the wiring rating
google image
It's all about keeping your system from burning up your beloved trailer...
Roy Ken
