What the heck is this?

[Mr. Bill]

I have a forest river 725D with an electric lift system. I disable the lift part when not in use. I just unscrew the +post a turn and take this "thing" off.

The thing is what I am wondering about. I appears to be 2 rectangle capacitors or something. All I know is that sometimes when raising or lowering the top, the thing will click and then I have no power to the lift. I wait a bit and it clicks again and I have power. They do tend to get hot before the click.

I am wondering if the battery is not putting out enough or if these things are going? Also, I am wondering what they are and if I were to replace them what would I replace them with?

I will try to get a pic and post it. But if anyone knows, I would appreciate any knowledge.

 

[hoodlum]

They are auto reset circuit breakers...Sounds like one is getting weak...They can be bought at your local autoparts for around $4.....

 

[Mr. Bill]

That is certainly what it looks like. I have 2 of them tied together. Now all I need to do is figure out what amperage to use.

 

[jim1999]

Yep, sound like auto reset circuit breakers, and it sounds like they are getting weak. Big box auto parts stores like Autozone may or may not carry them but ones like Napa usually do stock them. They are quite common in semi trucks.

 

[Micksc]

The amperage should be stamped on the breakers, but if not see if you can find the data on your lift system to determine the amps. Your replacement breakers should be rated at about 125% of that.
Good luck...

 

[PaThacker]

I remove the ground battery cable to disable everything in the pup. Long term offsite storage, I'd just remove the battery.

 

[Mr. Bill]

Okay, I now know they are 25A auto resetting circuit breakers. 25A is difficult to find. I can find 20 or 30 easily. I have a diagram of what they look like.

The question is what Amperage am I actually using? Because they are in parallel am I using 25+12.5 for a 37.5A or is it just 25 with redundancy or is it evenly split for a total of 50A?


The reason for replacing them is they are original, rusty and the circuit is popping. I suspect they are going bad and would like to replace the cheaper part first before going into a bunch of troubleshooting on the winch when it may simply be the breaker is going.

 

[jbarz73]

Since you have two in parallel, ideally it would be the sum of the two: 25+25. They are both 25A breakers, right?

Electricity will follow the path of least resistance. A poor or weak connection on one of the breakers could cause more current to flow through the other breaker, thus causing it to trip.

I hope that helps. Good luck.

 

[Mr. Bill]

Just thought I would update. I found 2 of the circuit breakers (with a plastic shell versus the metal I had). configured them the same as I had and the top goes up and down with no problem now. It must have been one getting worn out.