electrical breaker problem

[Bass_Appeal]

at night while running nav lights, gps , and a couple other things my breakers pops, then i have to wait to reset it , after resetting it a couple minutes later it pops again just to start all over again. any reason why this is happening and how can i fix it , the breaker is 40 amp

[Capt. Debbie]

None of that stuff would blow a 40AMP breaker. Could be bad breaker. Unless you have a bad refrig compressor it's the main breaker.

Try that

[Bass_Appeal]

thanks frank ill try to replace that and see what happens ,

[Bass_Appeal]

if anyone can answer this question for me , i bought the new breaker but to cold out side to put it in . so with that being said .....could i be blowing my breaker because im running both batteries ? i have a perko switch that allow batt 1 or batt 2...or both ....usually i have on both ! which i have read is not good either ....but can running on both send to much amperage through the system to blow a breaker ? im going to replace the breaker anyway just because the old one is corroded .. but also thinking about the overload on dc system!

[Gerry Zagorski]

Having two batteries in parallel is not going to overload your system. However having 2 batteries in parallel in general is not great idea because if one battery is weak it is going to drain the other. The best thing to do is isolate your batteries so they charge and discharge independent of one and other. Typical set up is a starting battery which is 100% dedicated to starting the engines and a house battery which is used to power your electronics. Theory here is that if your electronics run down the house battery no big deal since you still have the starting battery to start the engine.

Some boats are wired with parallel switches which allow you to temporarily parallel batteries together. This way if the battery you have dedicated to starting the boat is weak or run down you could temporarily parallel it with the house battery and start the boat.

[Bass_Appeal]

ok ill probraly replace the breaker then try and figure out what is cause it to trip , if it trips at all ....did know if the batteries running together would trip it or not

[Capt. Debbie]

You may not have fortitude for this to see if actual overload or not.

Disconnect one line into breaker. Load side is best. With load wire off the breaker, CLOSE the 40amp breaker. Should be 0 amps and nothing happens. Then slowly use needle nose to touch the load wire to empty close breaker side. If it is really over 40 amps ( a lot of current ) you will see a visible spark as you touch before the breaker pops.

If no spark it is NOT anywhere near 40 amps or over. In fact where you touch that load wire will likley have a black burn mark or more where it was touched with that kind of current.

In case you're wondering the wire you're holding is a load and if you drop it nothing happens.

Breakers pop proportional to the overload. They are made to driefly run with slight overload and pop immediately with big overloads like dead shorts.

So a 40 or 42 amp load on a breaker can take minutes to pop. While a 80 or 100 amp short will pop the breaker in a fraction of a second.

Hope that helps you?