Yes it is. And the term beast is sometimes more accurate than other more affectionate terms I use to describe my boat. But please don't tell her or mention this out loud.It's the nature of the beast.
You need to get one of those bottles of magic smoke. Set it next to the computer and it will sense the issue and give you a whiff of warning just when you need it. Real cool. Saw it in a YouTube video one late night.Hard to smell the smoke over the internet...
Notorious with aluminum conductors.I’m no expert, but I know few! I was just reading this and it reminded me of a problem I had in my home kitchen. I was all of a sudden popping a breaker when using the microwave that had been fine for years.
In my case, I also had smelled some magic smoke and called an electrician. He looked at my breakers and said everything was fine and that I was just overloading the circuit.
Well... I found the problem later in one of the outlets. What happens is... if there’s a slightly loose connection somewhere, and you start to pull current, the loose connection arcs a little bit and starts to oxidize and the connection gets worse. Eventually, the arcing gets hot and might melt part of the outlet. But you’re essentially pulling a crap ton of current through a tiny connection and will overload the circuit.
I fixed my kitchen problem by replacing the outlet and tightening
If it were me, I would start by disconnecting the AC somewhere like the main breaker panel and attach an outlet to the AC feed then plug in something like a power tool and see if it trips. Then I would follow the AC line around the boat and do the same thing until I found the problem connection.
The AC lines are all connected in series around the boat as far as I know.
We had a similar problem about 15 years ago. When we used our 5 year old hot tub the main panel breaker would trip after about 15 minutes.Eventually, the arcing gets hot and might melt part of the outlet. But you’re essentially pulling a crap ton of current through a tiny connection and will overload the circuit.
I fixed my kitchen problem by replacing the outlet and tightening all the connections.
No more tripping breakers.