Forum Discussion

Jetstreamer's avatar
Jetstreamer
Explorer
May 25, 2018

Something causing thermal battery breaker to pop

Just pulled the rig out of the barn today and parked it in the driveway. Plugged it into the 50 amp plug from the house and continued to finish leveling it with the landing gear. I noticed as I was running the gear down I could hear the motor changing pitch like the converter was cycling voltage. Never heard it do that before.
Didn’t think too much of it until I was standing near the battery compartment and could hear there was definitely something like a thermal breaker popping. The battery terminals were hot as well as the thermal breaker.
Now I just installed a progressive dynamics converter over a year ago with no apparent problems.
Now I have never messed with the charge wizard selector button (remote pendant) but when I looked at it it was solid green which I guess means boost mode?
I cycled through until I got a slow blink which I guess is the normal mode?
After I did that it seemed to be working normal with no hot battery terminals.
What do you all think might have happened and I’ll admit that I may have been doing something wrong with that charge wizard but it wasn’t touched from last year....
I’m a bit baffled...
  • Agree the breaker may be undersized in amps so it kept re-setting with the higher amps of the new converter. Need a higher amp breaker. The hot terminals could indicate the wires are too thin for the new higher amp converter too. So fatter wires as well.
  • Maybe it was some sort of overload due to low battery... what should I be seeing as far as lights on that charge wizard for normal automatic operation?

    Ok on edit I did review the owners manual for proper operation with the remote pendant...probably too high of a charge... I’ll keep an eye on it..
  • time2roll wrote:
    What is the breaker amp rating compared to the converter?

    Breaker rating s/b 20% higher (or more) than the converter but not to exceed the wire ampacity.


    Thanks I’ll check that.... the new converter was a higher amp output than the old WFCO.
  • What is the breaker amp rating compared to the converter?

    Breaker rating s/b 20% higher (or more) than the converter but not to exceed the wire ampacity.
  • Old-Biscuit wrote:
    Landing gear should be wired directly from battery with it's own in-line fuse (or DC Circuit Breaker) and NOT thru the converter/DC Dist Panel


    Sounds like battery voltage was low and converter was attempting to bulk charge during the high power demand


    Ok thanks!
  • Landing gear should be wired directly from battery with it's own in-line fuse (or DC Circuit Breaker) and NOT thru the converter/DC Dist Panel


    Sounds like battery voltage was low and converter was attempting to bulk charge during the high power demand