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Post by moonshadow on Jan 14, 2024 21:47:06 GMT
I am giving this one more try before I make some changes to my electrical system. My boat is a 2014 SO469. With two 30 amp inputs to the boat. And two more 30 amp inputs from the generator I have 4 electrical boxes near the stern that each have two breakers. One is a very narrow, 23mm wide 32 amp, 2pole breaker. Originally these were GE EPC452 or GE EPC
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Post by moonshadow on Jan 14, 2024 21:51:01 GMT
Sorry. That first post was incomplete. The rest is:
Some are GE EPC62 breakers. These are in addition to the large leak limiting ( similar to a GFCI?) breakers. Anyway, these EPC breakers are very narrow at 13mm and no longer produced. Has anyone found a source for these?
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Post by moonshadow on Jan 17, 2024 19:41:02 GMT
Just in case this is helpful I will post what I have learned here, copied from my post on the SO469 sub board.
few updates for anyone following this. I hope I can help someone else avoid similar concerns.
First off, the breakers in question are 18mm not 13 as for some reason I had in my mind. Sorry about that.
And, these breakers:32 amp, one pole plus N, 18mm are easily available in Europe. I have someone hunting some down for me in England.
Now, some things I have learned that are applicable to many of our boats. Remember that I am learning and I don’t consider myself a final definitive source. Feel free to double check and correct me. These breakers are designed as “supplemental Breakers” for branches off a main circuit, usually for individual equipment. Not usually for a whole main circuit. Being certified as supplemental they only need to trip once in testing and are not required to be resettable many times. This might explain why they “fail” so often. The general rule of thumb is that any circuit should be designed for 80% only of the rated load. And with a 30 amp input with 32amp breakers this would mean normal load limits of 24amps. My boat, like most delivered to US has 3 aircon/heating units. Each draw about 10 amps. Plus whatever inrush current surge there is during compressor start up. So by design these circuits appear to be inadequate for the boat. Now I won’t run all three at the same time.
And, since diesel engines like to be run with a load on I always tried to keep an electrical load when I run the generator. Battery charger, water heater, Watermaker, charge up my devices etc. Again it seems good for the generator but not for the electrical system.
Which all leads me to believe that I need to do more load management. I wasn’t previously aware of the need to watch my loads, believing that the boat electrical system was designed for what was installed on the boat. So now I limit my electrical load when I use generator or shore power and time will tell if this is all true. I hope that what I have learned helps me and is useful to others. And of course I will keep spare breakers on the boat when I obtain some.
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