SmoCo Sailingvideo
[Ep 53] San Francisquito Was Perfect… Until Our Inverter Failed
18 March 2026 · 21 min · 873 views · Municipio de San Quintín, Mexico
Burnt red circuit breaker held on sailboat deck
What this video covers
While anchored in San Francisquito, Baja, the crew of the 38-ft sailboat *Cosmo* experienced a total inverter failure accompanied by erratic battery voltage readings.9:29 The issue manifested as a "low battery" alarm on the Victron MultiPlus inverter/charger whenever high-draw appliances like an electric kettle or espresso machine were activated.18:45 Initial troubleshooting involved checking solar panel connections, resetting the VE.Smart network, and performing a hard reset of the system, but the inverter remained unresponsive.10:44
Upon inspecting the DC wiring, the owner discovered a fried circuit breaker serving as the main feed to the inverter.15:21 The switch had overheated and melted internally, creating high resistance that caused voltage drops during high-amperage loads and corrupted data across the Victron monitoring system.18:20 By bypassing the faulty breaker, the crew restored normal inverter function and stable voltage readings.18:42 The failure highlights how a degraded or high-resistance connection in a high-current DC circuit can mimic a low-battery state or battery bank failure.
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