Next message: Rick H Kennerly: "RE: lv-ab: Re: Worthless Circuitbreakers"
At the risk of stepping on some good folks toes, I will toss my two cents
(sense?) in...
First, it seems to me that Lew is in possesion of something I do not have,
IE professional expertise in this area, so I would not want to second-guess
him. I do agree with him that the function of a circuit breaker is to
protect the wiring, and I also think over-riding that 'in the heat of
battle' or otherwise is asking for catastrophic consequences, sooner or
later. Ideally, the breaker should not trip unless by tripping it prevents a
fire (or severely damaged wiring, ect) ...you want a fire? If it trips
otherwise, that is a different problem. There are such things as overload
relays, as Lew pointed out, that CAN be re-set before checking to see what
caused the trouble without burning down the boat.
Why should the windless get so hot? Is it too small or being used
improperly, or what? If it is heats up and causes the breaker to trip, I
would want to install a larger capacity wiring run and breaker...that way,
'in the heat of battle', I will not lose a critical piece of equipment.
I have a similar situation on my boat with the engine, if I crank it too
long, it will trip the breaker (which I installed in the ground cable to
prevent elect. fires if shorted). It is because the breaker is too small,
but to replace it I need to go to bigger wiring, and I cannot afford it
right now, so I wait ten sec or so and re-set.
Yes, the USN (God love 'em!) DOES have things such as "battle over-ride" and
"battle short", but on a Destroyer, YOU are expendable, if need be, as well
as the entire ship, if that is what it takes...I don't think the average
sailboat sailor is going to look at it quite the same way. So we need to
make sure any "battle over-rides" don't sacrifice safety.-Ken
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