Thread: Terrova trips circuit breaker

Didn’t mean to post that pic here, but to answer your question. I always use as large a wire as I can get by with as a jumper. I have lots of scrap wire around the shop but if you don’t I would go to parts house and get a battery cable and use it for jumper. I would recommend at least 6 gauge wire. I have seen guys get by with smaller but it could be part of your problem. Smaller wire higher resistance = higher heat.

Originally Posted by Crappkid

Very nice, been thinking about my breaker, had this boat since new 05”, had a 70lb, then 75lb
Motorguides , now this Terrova 80, only thing that hasn’t been touched,replaced is the jumper or cross wire on batteries to make 24v, it is a smaller gauge wire not sure how much smaller but smaller, Would you think that would play a part in making it trip
It’ll be the wknd before I can check it out
Thanks again


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Should be at least as big as the cables that run to your motor. That's usually 6 or 8 awg. It's such a short run that it doesn't need to be huge, but bigger is better.

Voltage and amperage are proportional. If you have voltage drop (high resistance), it causes amperage to increase, which can cause fuses to blow, breakers to trip, wires to heat up, etc.

Originally Posted by Atimm693

Should be at least as big as the cables that run to your motor. That's usually 6 or 8 awg. It's such a short run that it doesn't need to be huge, but bigger is better.

Voltage and amperage are proportional. If you have voltage drop (high resistance), it causes amperage to increase, which can cause fuses to blow, breakers to trip, wires to heat up, etc.

I just stopped by battery warehouse & got a 4ga cross wire for the 24v. And a shorty
4ga to go from batt to breaker.
Then it’s 6ga up to motor,
I’ll go thru everything by tomorrow & wet a hook and test it out if weather holds true to forecast
Thanks to all again


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Let us know how it turned out for you. I’m curious myself what it turns out to be.

Originally Posted by Crappkid

Hello, I bought the Terrova 80#
At the end of 2015, along with the minn Kota 60amp breaker,
I know all my wiring is 6 gauge
When running motor on high,
Won’t take long to trip brkr,
Really with speed on 7-8 will do it just takes longer, could it be a bad breaker? Thank you


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Was finally able to get on the water yesterday
Had replaced wire to the brkr & jumper wire on battery with 4ga
Purposely run motor hard while dragging drift socks for quite a while, breaker never tripped
Thanks all the advice

Spider rigged 2-7:30, 28 fow.
14 keepers caught approx
22-24ft, between 5-6:30pm
57* temp. Horseshoe


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The moral to this story is that it doesn’t take much to cause a problem. A crimped instead of a soldered connection, a tiny bit of fuzz growing on a battery. Glad you found the issue and you’re back in business.

Originally Posted by skeetbum

The moral to this story is that it doesn’t take much to cause a problem. A crimped instead of a soldered connection, a tiny bit of fuzz growing on a battery. Glad you found the issue and you’re back in business.

Yes sir you are right
Thanks


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not super related to this post, but ive always heard you shouldnt use a solder connection on a boat because the vibration will cause it to fail eventually. any truth to that?