Circuit Breaker

[Hookup1]

Too lazy to figure it out but can someone tell me what this red button breaker is for? Can’t trip it. Going to replace with a better breaker.

 

[JJF]

.

 

[ElyseM]

40 amp heavy gauge wire. windlass?

 

[SkunkBoat]

Probably your 40A 12V House breaker.
Your manual should show it. Disconnect the wire and see what doesn't work.

Red button breakers suck. They rust. They are not "trip-able". You can't use them to turn off the circiut.

Get an MRCB (marine resetteble circiut breaker)

You will probably need to replace the ring terminals to fit new breaker. Make sure you match the ring terminal id to the new breaker lug size.
They come in 1/4" and 5/16 and probably some metric to screw you...

Blue Seas brand is expensive but you can see the specs on their site.
285 series uses 1/4" lugs 187 series uses 5/16

Amazon has other brands for less. I have used them.

Once I had to change ring terminals on wires to fit.
also, the battery end has to match the + lug on the battery. Usually 5/16 on pos and 3/8 on neg, but I have had some wierd battery with both 3/8 in years past.

6 gauge wire.

 

[DennisG01]

Like Skunk said.

You don't really need it to be manually tripable since it's wired downstream of your battery switch, right? The switch turns the whole circuit off and then you have either fuses or breakers for each individual sub circuit.

The Blue Seas resettable breakers that Skunk mentioned are top notch, though.

 

[Hookup1]

Probably your 40A 12V House breaker.
Your manual should show it. Disconnect the wire and see what doesn't work.

Red button breakers suck. They rust. They are not "trip-able". You can't use them to turn off the circiut.

Get an MRCB (marine resetteble circiut breaker)

You will probably need to replace the ring terminals to fit new breaker. Make sure you match the ring terminal id to the new breaker lug size.
They come in 1/4" and 5/16 and probably some metric to screw you...

Blue Seas brand is expensive but you can see the specs on their site.
285 series uses 1/4" lugs 187 series uses 5/16

Amazon has other brands for less. I have used them.

Once I had to change ring terminals on wires to fit.
also, the battery end has to match the + lug on the battery. Usually 5/16 on pos and 3/8 on neg, but I have had some wierd battery with both 3/8 in years past.

6 gauge wire.

That's what I thought it was. I remember your comment about the red button breaker sucks. Voltage at the helm and overhead box is lower than it should be. I have to open up the lower station and check how things are wired. I have a red/white and a black/white direct from the battery to the overhead box that is not connected!

The overhead box has a red and a black wire that look like the same ones connected to the battery but it's possible that pair run down to the helm electronics box. The electronics go dark if you turn the house battery switch to off. That red button breaker is right there and probably powers the helm. I have a Toscas circuit breaker from Amazon in hand. If lugs are right I'll put it in tomorrow.

I'll sort the power to upper and lower boxes tomorrow as well.

 

[seasick]

Too lazy to figure it out but can someone tell me what this red button breaker is for? Can’t trip it. Going to replace with a better breaker.

It looks like your accessory feed that supplies power to just about everything except always hot loads like auto bilge pumps.
You can't easily trip it using the button. That is for reset if it pops. If you shorted out the positive and negative feeds to your fuse block, it should pop but I don't suggest doing that.
Those breakers do wear out/corrode, etc. Do not replace with a higher capacity breaker.

 

[SkunkBoat]

If I remember right, the red button has small philips screws and ring terminals, like #10. IMO too small for 6 gauge wire.
Get yourself a cable lug crimp tool on amazon. get a switchable breaker with 5/16 lugs.

Seems on bigger gradys they ran 6 gauge to a terminal block under helm then 10 gauge to fuse panel, dash switch panel and up to e box.
Usually the 10 gauge is orange. From what I hear here, some smaller or older boats had a 10 gauge "home run" from the e box to the battery for VHF.

 

[Hookup1]

If I remember right, the red button has small philips screws and ring terminals, like #10. IMO too small for 6 gauge wire.
Get yourself a cable lug crimp tool on amazon. get a switchable breaker with 5/16 lugs.

Seems on bigger gradys they ran 6 gauge to a terminal block under helm then 10 gauge to fuse panel, dash switch panel and up to e box.
Usually the 10 gauge is orange. From what I hear here, some smaller or older boats had a 10 gauge "home run" from the e box to the battery for VHF.

I swapped the circuit breaker out. Lugs had to be drilled out with a step bit but there was plenty of copper lug to do it. That breaker controlled everything on the helm including the switch panel and upper/lower electronics boxes. Upper box powered by a red wire (red/white black white pair to battery not switched and unused). Lower box powered by a red/black pair I ran years ago. Goes into console somewhere but I can't see where it goes. Voltages look better at chartplotter about 12.4 volts. I'm going to leave it for now.

Been having a problem with chartplotter shutting down when the VHF is keyed on 25W. I rerouted power and antenna wires and it is working fine now.

 

[Mustang65fbk]

https://gradywhite-fdcdn-blob-dqabgae8e7g5fygv.a02.azurefd.net/media/22238/1997-268.pdf