Marine breaker as battery disconnect?

[dward51]

Is there any reason not to use this breaker with a manual disconnect/reset as my main breaker and when needed as a battery disconnect? I plan on putting it inside the front pass through which is about a foot away from where the current main battery breaker is.



The trailer currently has 6 gauge wire and an 80 amp self-resetting breaker about 2 feet off the battery (first thing the battery cable goes to). I'm changing all the 6ga wiring to 2ga which can handle 200amps, so the 150amp breaker is appropriate and I'm not over fusing the line. I will be adding another foot or so to the first part of the cable to move this inside the compartment vs where the existing self-resetting breaker currently is (and is wide open to the rain and weather). I'm also thinking of keeping an 80amp self-resetting breaker in the circuit and this will be my "fail safe" catastrophic breaker and a disconnect. Or would I be better off to just use say a 100amp breaker like this one and let it serve double duty?

I wanted to put in a disconnect switch for the odd time I need to kill the DC and this is easier than unscrewing the battery cable when I need to kill the DC. I'm putting it inside the front pass through for ease of access and longevity of the component (yes, it is marine grade and 100% waterproof), plus I can lock it up to keep the grandkid from being tempted to play with the switch, etc...

I've seen threads where people put in marine disconnect switches, but they were just that, the switch. I have not seen one where these type of breaker/switches were used. We use them all the time in boats and both of my boats have one as a disconnect and DC main breaker.

If you are not familiar with these, you push the red button in, and it manually opens the breaker contacts, dropping the yellow bar downward. To reset, just push the yellow bar back up. They are made to be used as a switch also.

[babock]

If you are running an inverter off of it, I would use a fuse and a regular disconnect switch instead. Circuit breakers have more voltage drop than a fuse does. If you don't, it's not an issue.

There are some people that feel that you shouldn't switch these while high current is flowing because you can arc the contacts. I have never actually seen these warnings in print from the manufacturers. I do try to minimize using them while current is flowing myself but I am not using them as a battery disconnect.

I actually prefer this style better. They are weatherproof and are what I use.
http://www.cooperindustries.com/cont...s_187_MRCB.pdf

Just make sure any circuits that are branching off this main feed have smaller circuit breakers if they use smaller gauge wire. For example, if this feeds a busbar and then you have smaller circuits off of it.

[dward51]

Thanks

No inverter in the trailer. Just needed to replace the 80amp self-resetting one that has been exposed to the weather and is looking rough. Which is also why I'm moving it. I don't intent to use it to disconnect the battery when camping, mainly in storage or when needing to work on something so other than the small phantom loads, current should be pretty low.

I saw the 187 series breaker/switch. I had the 150amp 285 series from a prior boat project. I may go ahead and order a 187 series as I like the 2 terminals on the same side better for trailer mounting. I'm thinking I will just order it in 100amp since I upgraded the wiring to 2 gauge. All the other wiring is already fused for the individual loads and I'm just dealing with the main feed to the distribution panel.