On Sat, 8 Dec 2007 21:25:32 -0800 (PST), Itinerant
wrote:

HELLO PETER, THANKS FOR REPLYING. SORRY IF WE SOUND CONFUSING WE HAVE
ONLY HAD THE BOAT FOR A WEEK AND ARE NEW TO HAVING A POWER BOAT, OUR
PREVIOUS SAIL BOAT WAS VERY SIMPLE WITH FEW GADGETS =) THE PREVIOUS
OWNER DID NOT HAVE THE BOAT FOR VERY LONG, SO HE DOES NOT REALLY HAVE
MANY ANSWERS FOR US EITHER.

Another thought: if you have a hot water tank, leave it off - no point
wasting power keeping the water hot when you won;t be using it, and it
does consume a lot of power, and it won't be sensed by the Link 1000's
current sharing scheme.

--
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI
peterbb4 (at) interchange.ubc.ca
GPS and NMEA info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter
Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vancouver.powersquadron.ca

On Sat, 8 Dec 2007 21:25:32 -0800 (PST), Itinerant
wrote:

......
cord. If the shore breaker trips, you have a wiring problem in the 30
- 15 amp adaptor, the dock outlet (unlikely) or on the boat (also
unlikely, if things worked when plugged into a 30 amp outlet.)

WE DID TURN EVERYTHING OFF AND PLUGGED IN AND TRIPPED THE BREAKER ON
THE DOCK.

......


Here's a lifeline: if you blow a shore supply breaker when your stuff
is all OFF, you have the famous "American Neutral to Ground"
connection.

That's the way American consumers are wired, after all!
Get an electrician to fix it up for preference

Regards



Brian Whatcott Altus OK

On 2007-12-09 14:46:19 -0500, Brian Whatcott said:

On Sat, 8 Dec 2007 21:25:32 -0800 (PST), Itinerant
wrote:

.....
If the shore breaker trips, you have a wiring problem in the 30 - 15
amp adaptor, the dock outlet (unlikely) or on the boat (also unlikely,
if things worked when plugged into a 30 amp outlet.)

WE DID TURN EVERYTHING OFF AND PLUGGED IN AND TRIPPED THE BREAKER ON THE DOCK.

Here's a lifeline: if you blow a shore supply breaker when your stuff
is all OFF, you have the famous "American Neutral to Ground" connection.

I've found it impossible to respond to the posts with much of that
shouting, but a test I'd like to see is what happens if the cord isn't
plugged into the boat, but both pigtails on shore (if I'm reading
things correctly) are. If that trips the breaker, the problem is one of
the outlets OR the pigtail itself, nothing on the boat.

If the breaker trips only when plugged into the boat AND the boat's
breaker doesn't trip, I'd carefully examine from the plug to the
distribution panel for a shorted wire. The receptacle is the most
likely culprit, but there could be chafing down below.

I'd also test to see if another boat successfully plugged in elsewhere
could draw from his.

--
Jere Lull
Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

Thank you for all of your posts, and sorry again for SHOUTING!

We tried many different senarios with no luck, we believe that we have
ruled out the cords and the pigtail. We have not tried to plug in
without being plugged into the boat ... interesting we may have to
take a walk tonight to try that out. We qustion that it would be the
receptacle as the 30 Amp worked fine on the other dock. Today when we
were at the boat we turned the battery seletor to off, and made sure
all circuits were off and both main switches and it still tripped the
box on the dock (instentaniously, before the plug was even half way
pushed in). We are starting to think that all it could be is a ground
problem -- possibly "American Neutral to Ground" as mentioned above.

We are currently running an outdoor extention cord from the dock to
our cabin heater. The system was just installed this past April and
we have found the mechanics receipt (yippy!), so tomorrow we will try
and get in touch with him to see if he can help us out.

Craig & Tanya Petterson
Vancouver BC Canada

"Brian Whatcott" wrote
the famous "American Neutral to Ground" connection.
That's the way American consumers are wired, after all!

Say what?

On Sun, 9 Dec 2007 22:29:15 -0500, "Ernest Scribbler"
wrote:

"Brian Whatcott" wrote
the famous "American Neutral to Ground" connection.
That's the way American consumers are wired, after all!

Say what?


What is it that you don't understand? See code of practice for first
drop at domestic distribution transformer.....

Brian W

On Sat, 08 Dec 2007 17:19:29 -0800, Peter Bennett
wrote:

More details would be useful. As it stands, your description doesn't
make sense to me, as the common North American 30 amp shore power
service _is_ 110 volts. Do you mean that the boat has a 30 amp power
inlet and shore power cord, but the dock only has a household-style 15
amp/110V outlet?

There is also the twenty amp outlet. The plug's blades are at ninety
degrees. Only such plugs I have ever seen were for window type air
conditioners. They make the outlets with the 'T' shaped holes to take
both those and the fifteen amp ones with the parallel blades.

Casady

On Dec 9, 8:16 pm, (Richard Casady) wrote:
On Sat, 08 Dec 2007 17:19:29 -0800, Peter Bennett

wrote:
More details would be useful. As it stands, your description doesn't
make sense to me, as the common North American 30 amp shore power
service _is_ 110 volts. Do you mean that the boat has a 30 amp power
inlet and shore power cord, but the dock only has a household-style 15
amp/110V outlet?

There is also the twenty amp outlet. The plug's blades are at ninety
degrees. Only such plugs I have ever seen were for window type air
conditioners. They make the outlets with the 'T' shaped holes to take
both those and the fifteen amp ones with the parallel blades.

Casady

Here in Canada we often use those 'horizontal pin' plugs for 230
volts.
In our garage, for example, we have 115 volt vertical pin outlets and
a 230 volt so we can plug in both types of tools. Both are breakered
at 15 amps.
On a workshop workbench we also have both.

On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 14:59:12 -0800 (PST), terry
wrote:

On Dec 9, 8:16 pm, (Richard Casady) wrote:
On Sat, 08 Dec 2007 17:19:29 -0800, Peter Bennett

wrote:
More details would be useful. As it stands, your description doesn't
make sense to me, as the common North American 30 amp shore power
service _is_ 110 volts. Do you mean that the boat has a 30 amp power
inlet and shore power cord, but the dock only has a household-style 15
amp/110V outlet?

There is also the twenty amp outlet. The plug's blades are at ninety
degrees. Only such plugs I have ever seen were for window type air
conditioners. They make the outlets with the 'T' shaped holes to take
both those and the fifteen amp ones with the parallel blades.

Casady

Here in Canada we often use those 'horizontal pin' plugs for 230
volts.
In our garage, for example, we have 115 volt vertical pin outlets and
a 230 volt so we can plug in both types of tools. Both are breakered
at 15 amps.
On a workshop workbench we also have both.

Come to think of it, the 20 Amp ones have one blade each way, and the
two blade horizontal are 220 in the US as well. I think. Been a while
since I last wired any outlets, but think that I now have it right.

Casady

Itinerant wrote:
We are having difficulties figuring out the shorepower. Everything
was working fine on 30A, but now that we have moved to a new dock
where there is only 110 we have attached our pig tail to take the 30
to 110 but it trips the breaker on the dock as soon as we plug it in.
We tried using the neighbour's pigtail (which works for him) and it
still trips it. We have the Xantrex inverter/charger and have
adjusted the powershare level to 10 (from 30).

Any ideas?

after shutting off all breakers in the 120 v circuit, put a voltmeter
inline with the pigtail to see if, in fact, you are still drawing
current. I'll be you are. You will need to trace / fix that.

You probably have an unswitched appliance