druid wrote:
Ok, so Far Cove has been plugged in to shore power at the marina all
winter. I go out for the weekend (story at
http://www.bcboatnet.org/cgi-bin/yab...m=117734 3693
), and when I try to plug in again last night, I get a "POLARITY"
light on my panel! Now, I haven't touched my end of the wiring or the
power cord, and I just checked the Marina: they didn't to any work
over the weekend and assure me their connector is correct.

I wonder what they pay for liability
insurance.


SO: first, is there a diagram somewhere that shows which pins on a 30A
shore-power connector are supposed to be Line, Neutral, and Ground?
And second, is there another reason why a "polarity" light would go
on: maybe a ground-fault?

druid


Is the "polarity" light wired like the
common plug-in types that display three
neon bulbs? Without knowing exactly what
your (custom?) panel is checking and how
it is wired, it is difficult to
interpret the illuminated polarity light.

Normally, a polarity error would occur
if the neutral (white) is hot and the
line (black) is at ground potential.

If you rule out gnomes, an open neutral
might produce a "polarity" error,
although the common garden variety
tester would correctly report it as an
open, rather than as a polarity error.

You might do some **cautious** checking
with a meter (preferably an analog type)
to verify that there is zero volts
between ground and neutral and full
voltage between line and ground or neutral.


Chuck

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Chuck wrote:

You might do some **cautious** checking with a meter...

ZAAAP!

A good thing to carry with you is one of those adapter that lets you plug a
standard extension cord into the shore power. It's useful for those times
you want to use power tools without running power through the boat panel.
Buy one of those little 3 LED polarity and ground testers and stick it into
the adapter. You can then check the basic marina circuit before plugging
the boat in and not have any arguments with them whether it is your wiring
or theirs.

My tester lives in an outlet near the switch panel so I have a double check
of ground integrity as soon as the outlets come live. When plugged into AC.
it is also a night light.

--
Roger Long