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Edgar Edgar is offline
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 741
Default Troubles with shorepower


"Itinerant" wrote in message
...
WE DID

turned volume right down on the rest:-))

If the shore breaker hasn't tripped, turn on the branch circuit
breakers one at a time, til it does - then you _may_ have found the
source of the problem.

One local marina uses the 15 amp household-style outlets, and has
several outlets on one breaker - this caused blown breakers several
times on a club cruise there, as we all wanted to run heaters - I
think we eventually got the boats distributed between breakers, and
heaters turned down, so we could all get some heat.


My boat came from USA and has 110 volt equipment which I wanted to retain so
I installed a 230/110 volt transformer (2kw capacity) to bring down the
local 230 volts to 110.
Every time I plugged it in it tripped the marina breakers. I spoke to the
transformer people who said that this is a common problem now that breakers
have largely replaced the old fashioned fuses in these marinas. Some of
these breakers are very hair trigger in their response to over current.
They said that even my small transformer takes no less than 200 amps while
it builds up its flux. This only lasts for 5 milliseconds but is enough to
trip the more sensitive type of breakers whereas it would not trip an old
fashioned fuse as these react more slowly and would not have time to heat up
before the transformer current went back to zero.
The solution was to introduce a 'current limiter' in series with the primary
of the transformer. This is a very small component that looks like, and
probably is, a condenser-a blob about 1/2" diameter ith two wires sticking
out. Once powered up the only current the transformer takes is that due to
the load-max 2kw.
End of problem for me, but to be sure I put two of them in series bcause it
is highly embarassing to shut down the power of the whole dock finger when
other people are also plugged in..
So, I suggest that your inverter or whatever you are powering up has the
same current surge on starting and may well be cured the same way. Talk to
the makers and see.