"mmc" wrote in
ng.com:

We had an issue with AC problems at our marina. When the demand was
high, certain 110v items wouldn't work or would work right - seems the
power thinned out to the rest of the boats on our circuit. Obviously
I'm not an electrician.


That sounds like a loose neutral connection. That forces the current from
one load going into the neutral bus to go out to the other phase of the 240
through the loads on the other side of neutral. When something switches
off on the other phase, your side loses voltage because they are in series
across 240VAC. When a motor starts on one side, the other side bears the
brunt of most of the 240VAC as the motor is drawing very heavy current.
This will blow out anything on the side opposite the starting motor with
overvoltage...lights blink very bright, fuses in electronics blow en masse
trying to protect their hosts.

Loose neutral is very dangerous for everything hooked up. Any time you see
lights suddenly get BRIGHTER for an instant it's almost always loose
neutral connections to the power grid.

"mmc" wrote in message
ng.com...

"Capt. JG" wrote in message
easolutions...
"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Capt. JG" wrote in
easolutions:

either someone has been
deliberately turning off the A/C (not necessarily maliciously) or
something in the box is tripping the switch

When a breaker trips from overcurrent, it needs to be "reset" by pushing
it
into the off position, or pushing a popout button on some breakers.

You talk as if the breaker has just been switched off as you said
nothing
about having to reset the breaker before turning it on.

Yeah, there was no resetting. It's either on or off, and the maint. guy
mentioned the "possibility" of it tripping. I think it's bs.


So, I'm thinking deliberately turning it off...saving the marina $$$, a
motivation unto itself.

They have no motivation, as far as my boat is concerned. The guy across
the walk from me is power hog many times over by comparison.


To turn the breaker off requires a finger to push on one side of the
breaker toggle handle. Coat that side with greasepencil lightly so it's
not very evident. Make the coat smooth so we can see that fingerprint
of
the SOB that's flipping the breaker on you. That will let use at least
see
"SOMEONE" is flipping it off.

Office supply places also have a permanent staining red ink that won't
wash
off. It's available in non-drying printer's ink like they put on a
press
with a roller. It takes months to "dry". You could coat the toggle
with
that then casually watch marina people's fingers for the indelible red
stain....


I would do this, but I'll just end up with a red finger. LOL


I was thinking of getting a lock for the flip up cover, but I don't think
the marina would like that too much. I'm going to talk to my neighbor and
see if I can use his A/C connection for a while. He doesn't have anything
plugged in anyway. His switch was on when I got there... just mine was
off.

For the next couple of weeks, I asked the maint. guy to be kind enough to
check it from time to time, which he agreed to do. They don't have much
interest in having someone's bilge pump fail after a rain and end up with
a boat on the bottom.


--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com



We had an issue with AC problems at our marina. When the demand was high,
certain 110v items wouldn't work or would work right - seems the power
thinned out to the rest of the boats on our circuit. Obviously I'm not an
electrician.
I might suspect the power hog guy you mentioned. Maybe his ceramic heaters
won't work will the wifes curling iron was plugged in and he decides your
boat doesn't need the power.
What about putting a lock on the box for just a few days? If it's tripped
when you open it you'll know.



It would be a nice thought, but I don't believe the marina would allow a
lock, given the potential hazard.

I have a call into my neighbor... apparently my other neighbor saw him
working on his boat lately.


--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

Larry wrote:

To turn the breaker off requires a finger to push on one side of the
breaker toggle handle. Coat that side with greasepencil lightly so it's
not very evident. Make the coat smooth so we can see that fingerprint of
the SOB that's flipping the breaker on you. That will let use at least see
"SOMEONE" is flipping it off.

Office supply places also have a permanent staining red ink that won't wash
off. It's available in non-drying printer's ink like they put on a press
with a roller. It takes months to "dry". You could coat the toggle with
that then casually watch marina people's fingers for the indelible red
stain....

Larry, you are a devious son-of-a-bitch! :-)

Cheers
Martin

"Marty" wrote in message
news
Larry wrote:

To turn the breaker off requires a finger to push on one side of the
breaker toggle handle. Coat that side with greasepencil lightly so it's
not very evident. Make the coat smooth so we can see that fingerprint of
the SOB that's flipping the breaker on you. That will let use at least
see "SOMEONE" is flipping it off.

Office supply places also have a permanent staining red ink that won't
wash off. It's available in non-drying printer's ink like they put on a
press with a roller. It takes months to "dry". You could coat the
toggle with that then casually watch marina people's fingers for the
indelible red stain....

Larry, you are a devious son-of-a-bitch! :-)

Cheers
Martin


I have known that for years......

Leanne

"Leanne" wrote in :

"Marty" wrote in message
news
Larry wrote:

To turn the breaker off requires a finger to push on one side of the
breaker toggle handle. Coat that side with greasepencil lightly so
it's not very evident. Make the coat smooth so we can see that
fingerprint of the SOB that's flipping the breaker on you. That
will let use at least see "SOMEONE" is flipping it off.

Office supply places also have a permanent staining red ink that
won't wash off. It's available in non-drying printer's ink like
they put on a press with a roller. It takes months to "dry". You
could coat the toggle with that then casually watch marina people's
fingers for the indelible red stain....

Larry, you are a devious son-of-a-bitch! :-)

Cheers
Martin


I have known that for years......

Leanne



Hey! Watch it!

Marty wrote in newsZ-
:

Larry, you are a devious son-of-a-bitch! :-)

Cheers
Martin



Thank you!....

He's probably made an enemy on the dock. They can do more to you than an
emeny on usenet...

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Marty wrote in newsZ-
:

Larry, you are a devious son-of-a-bitch! :-)

Cheers
Martin



Thank you!....

He's probably made an enemy on the dock. They can do more to you than an
emeny on usenet...



Is that another conspiracy theory we should check out? LOL

They're all friends of mine...

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Capt. JG" wrote in
ons:

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Marty wrote in newsZ-
:

Larry, you are a devious son-of-a-bitch! :-)

Cheers
Martin



Thank you!....

He's probably made an enemy on the dock. They can do more to you
than an emeny on usenet...



Is that another conspiracy theory we should check out? LOL

They're all friends of mine...


With your ****ty attitude, if you were on the dock, you'd be a prime
suspect.

On Dec 19, 9:09*pm, Larry wrote:
He's probably made an enemy on the dock. *

More likely that someone has a heavy electrical load and is tripping
one of the main breakers at the distribution panel. The power pylons
are wired based on the assumption that not all pylons will be
supplying full power at the same time. I don't know what the
conventional ratios are; it would not surprise me if ten 30A outlets
are fed by a 100A distribution circuit. If someone is plugged into two
30A outlets (charger/house/water heater on one and heat pumps on the
second) and regularly drawing a total of 50As it wouldn't take very
many other smaller consumers on the same circuit to trip the
distribution breaker. Through a couple of electric heaters into the
mix and the loads get big.

I have wintered at a couple of marinas with home runs from each power
pylon to the distribution panels. The cabling under the docks was
truly impressive. In other places the winter liveaboards and frequent
winter boaters were redistributed in the slips to keep loads on
different distribution circuits. Even so we quickly figured out which
boats we could turn off power to on really cold nights. It's polite to
turn them back on in the morning however.

Just a thought.

sail fast, dave

Auspicious wrote in news:a6ff2273-b540-4f0d-b82e-
:

I have wintered at a couple of marinas with home runs from each power
pylon to the distribution panels. The cabling under the docks was
truly impressive. In other places the winter liveaboards and frequent
winter boaters were redistributed in the slips to keep loads on
different distribution circuits. Even so we quickly figured out which
boats we could turn off power to on really cold nights. It's polite to
turn them back on in the morning however.



Ashley Marina in Charleston is impressively wired like this. There are
primary distribution transformers mounted right on the floating docks.
They are huge, much larger than ground transformers feeding many houses.
The hum, in Summer with all the air conditioners flogging away trying to
cool the uninsulated plastic boxes, is very impressive. The docks are fed
with 23,000 volt primaries, which keeps the cabling down to a minimum.

At City Marina, when one of the large powerboats docks to the Megadock, the
duty engineer for the marina tows a little trailer-mounted substation out
on the dock to provide individual isolated power to large vessels. He
plugs it into the high voltage feedpoints along the dock. I think they can
provide 3 phase and single phase 208, 240, 440 and maybe 908VAC service to
some very impressive looking "dock cables".

These power transformers have a CONVENIENT watt hour meter built into the
end of them, of course, for the billing. I'm not sure if they have
remotely readable metering, but that wouldn't surprise me.