"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.

"Edgar" wrote in message
...

"Itinerant" wrote in message
...


FWIW,

I have discovered that some inverters that are based on switching power
supply technology just don't get along well with ground fault (GFI)
protected circuits. When power is first applied, and within the first half
cycle of the 60Hz, the impedance of the switching power supply appears as a
dead short to ground, tripping the GFI type breaker. There's nothing wrong
with the circuit, it's just a characteristic of the supply type.

Xantrex happens to be one that I've experienced problems with before in
this regard.

Eisboch

"Eisboch" wrote
I have discovered that some inverters that are based on switching power
supply technology just don't get along well with ground fault (GFI)
protected circuits.

Do marinas commonly use GFCIs on their shore power circuits?

"Ernest Scribbler" wrote in
:

Do marinas commonly use GFCIs on their shore power circuits?




Not around here. All the breakers at our marinas are the old rusty
types with the half-broken-off handles...(c;

GFCI's are way too expensive for marinas, trying to extract maximum
profits in the shortest length of time.

Larry
--
Merry Christmas!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qi_NhFS4xEE

"Eisboch" wrote in
news
the impedance of the switching power supply appears as a
dead short to ground, tripping the GFI type breaker. There's
nothing
wrong with the circuit, it's just a characteristic of the
supply type.




The input of any switching power supply is merely a full wave
bridge rectifier and some LARGE electrolytic capacitors, which
are what causes the huge surge when you plug them in...charging
those caps.

They use large caps for a reason.....to reduce the effects of
powerline pulses, especially OFF pulses that blink your lights.
The large caps can hold up the output DC for several hundred
milliseconds during those brief power "blinks".

Unfortunately, the idiots are trying to see how few parts they
can make them out of so leave out any surge-reducing varistors or
even low value surge resistors from the primary circuit that
would stop the huge pulse and plug-in-arcing.

Larry
--
Merry Christmas!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qi_NhFS4xEE

Larry wrote:
"Eisboch" wrote in
news

the impedance of the switching power supply appears as a
dead short to ground, tripping the GFI type breaker. There's

nothing

wrong with the circuit, it's just a characteristic of the

supply type.




The input of any switching power supply is merely a full wave
bridge rectifier and some LARGE electrolytic capacitors, which
are what causes the huge surge when you plug them in...charging
those caps.

They use large caps for a reason.....to reduce the effects of
powerline pulses, especially OFF pulses that blink your lights.
The large caps can hold up the output DC for several hundred
milliseconds during those brief power "blinks".

Unfortunately, the idiots are trying to see how few parts they
can make them out of so leave out any surge-reducing varistors or
even low value surge resistors from the primary circuit that
would stop the huge pulse and plug-in-arcing.

Larry


Wouldn't adding something like a starting capacitor fix that?

cavelamb himself wrote in
:

Wouldn't adding something like a starting capacitor fix that?



No, the circuit is just too simple...4 diodes in a bridge, caps
across the DC output of the rectifiers about 160VDC to power the
power MOSFET switching transistors running at 100 Khz or so. The
custom IC made to run all this measures the output DC volts and
varies the pulse width fed to the power transistors to regulate
the voltage. There's nothing analog about it. The MOSFETS are
either OFF, no heat generated or SATURATED, very little heat
generated because they are nearly a short at saturation...full
on. The DC output comes from another set of higher frequency
rectifiers hooked to a high frequency toroid transformer,
sometimes with more than one secondary winding like the DC power
supply in your desktop computer to get different voltages and
polarities....

When the load increases and output voltage TRIES to drop, the IC
senses this very fast and widens the pulse with to the switching
transistors, pulling the voltage back up with more power to the
toroid transformer. If the line voltage changes, the output also
tries to change, causing the sensing of the IC to vary the pulse
width in the appropriate direction to compensate. Some switching
power supplies, like those very light wall bricks that run and
charge your cellphones, pocket PCs, and laptop computers will
tolerate a voltage change so huge you don't even have to worry
about what line voltage you're plugging it into from 80VAC to
280VAC! If you plug it into 115 in USA, the pulse width is wider
than if you plug it into 240 in Europe. It doesn't care what
frequency because we're just going to directly rectify AC into DC
and feed it to the big input caps to store for the switchers.

What's hilarious in all this is someone with a very wide input
Switching powersupply plugging it into some kind of "SURGE
PROTECTOR" to keep any power line surges from "damaging" it. The
switcher could care less! If a big pulse of voltage comes into
it, the huge input caps just absorb it, turning the pulse into
more power for the switchers to use. Hell, if you surge it at
300V that's well within "normal" peak voltage on the 240VAC
system it was also designed for! The surge protector IS the
power supply itself! It's output is steady as a rock until the
big input filter caps drop below about 70VDC...on power down.

Switchers are neat.

Larry
--
Merry Christmas!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qi_NhFS4xEE