BrianSmith
Senior Member
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2014
- Messages
- 487
- Location
- USA
- Vessel Name
- Smartini
- Vessel Make
- 2002 Kristen 52' Flybridge Trawler
Been in the same marina for 2 months, connected to the same shore power pedestal. During most days, we turn it off on our main circuit breaker panel and let the solar panels do the best they can, and in the evening, if it's not above 85% or so, we flip on the "Shore power" switch and leave it on overnight.
Last evening, I flipped on the "Shore power" switch and very quickly smelled blue smoke. Traced it to the attached picture. The wire going into the circuit breaker that provides AC power to our Magnum Inverter / Charger was totally fried, and the connection on the CB itself was destroyed (see picture). The breaker itself never flipped off.
Questions:
1. Why would the breaker not flip off? Other than "it's defective", which it very well may be, is there any other reason I'd see enough energy to fry that cable that would NOT flip the breaker? (By the way, in the past, when we've tried to run too many things through the AC side of the systemm, this breaker has flipped off, which says, I think, that it's at least in the ballpark of being the correct size - 30A.)
2. What could make this much amperage go through this wire? As noted above, the wire provides AC power to the Magnum Inverter Charger. In its current state (fried wire), the Magnum is still inverting just fine, but it won't go into "Charge" mode. The non-inverted AC items on the boat (such as the water heater and washer/dryer) are working fine. It's only the Magnum's charger function (used to charge the house bank only) that's out of commission because of the fried wire. And as noted above, the house bank was at 82%, so it didn't need some crazy unusual amount of amperage to charge it.