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?

On Sat, 8 Dec 2007 15:08:46 -0800 (PST), 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?

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?

If so, first thing I would do would be to turn off all the AC panel
circuit breakers - both main and branch. Then connect the shore power
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.)

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.


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

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.

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?

YES THAT IS CORRECT THE DOCK ONLY AS A HOUSEHOLD STYLE 15 AMP OUTLET
(WE ARE AT HEATHER MARINE IN FALSE CREEK)

If so, first thing I would do would be to turn off all the AC panel
circuit breakers - both main and branch. Then connect the shore power
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. WE TRIED OUR NEIGHBOUR BOAT'S ADOPTOR ON OUR CABLE (WHICH I
MIGHT ADD IS NEW) AND IT STILL TRIPPED THE DOCK BREAKER. (ON THE DOCK
AT GRANVILLE ISLAND WE HAD NO PROBLEMS WITH USING THE 30 AMP.)

WE HAD SET THE (XANTREX LINK 1000) POWER SHARE VALUE TO A NUMBER OF
VALUES -- DEFAULT IS 30 -- WE THINK WE WILL TRY SETTING IT TO 15 AND
TRY AGAIN? I'M THINKING THAT WE DON'T HAVE SOMETHING SET CORRECT ON
THIS LINK 1000.

BTW -- WE ARE INTERESTED IN THE VANCOUVER POWER SQUADRON WHICH I SEE
YOU HAVE A LINK TO ON THE BOTTOM OF YOUR POST, ARE YOU A MEMBER? IS
THERE AN EVENING THAT WE CAN COME AND CHECK IT OUT?

THANKS AGAIN.


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.

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

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.

Ouch! That's loud!

Amps, volts watts, ohms, aren't they all the same?


Dennis.

"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.

In article , Itinerant wrote:
HELLO PETER, THANKS FOR REPLYING. SORRY IF WE SOUND CONFUSING WE HAVE

[snip]

Please don't shout. It makes for very unpleasant reading.

Justin.

--
Justin C, by the sea.

"Roger Long" wrote in news:475bd5bc$0$27918
:

Typing in all caps is considered shouting and quite rude.



WHAT?!

Larry
--
Any more news on Grandpa??

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 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.

Your caps lock key seems to be broken...

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?

YES THAT IS CORRECT THE DOCK ONLY AS A HOUSEHOLD STYLE 15 AMP OUTLET
(WE ARE AT HEATHER MARINE IN FALSE CREEK)

If so, first thing I would do would be to turn off all the AC panel
circuit breakers - both main and branch. Then connect the shore power
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. WE TRIED OUR NEIGHBOUR BOAT'S ADOPTOR ON OUR CABLE (WHICH I
MIGHT ADD IS NEW) AND IT STILL TRIPPED THE DOCK BREAKER. (ON THE DOCK
AT GRANVILLE ISLAND WE HAD NO PROBLEMS WITH USING THE 30 AMP.)

The marina's breaker trips even with your main breaker turned off? If
so, something is seriously wrong.


WE HAD SET THE (XANTREX LINK 1000) POWER SHARE VALUE TO A NUMBER OF
VALUES -- DEFAULT IS 30 -- WE THINK WE WILL TRY SETTING IT TO 15 AND
TRY AGAIN? I'M THINKING THAT WE DON'T HAVE SOMETHING SET CORRECT ON
THIS LINK 1000.

The Link 1000 is a battery monitor/control panel used with a Xantrex
Fredom-series inverter/charger.

If the marina outlet has a 15 amp breaker, you should set the power
share setting to less than 15 amps. If you can reduce the maximum
charger current to 50 amps or less, you should do that as well. I
have a Prosine 2.0 inverter/charger on my boat, which has an "Source
Breaker Rating" (or somesuch) setting. If you have something like
that, set it below 15 amps.

However, none of this will help if the marina breaker trips even with
the boat's main breaker off.

BTW -- WE ARE INTERESTED IN THE VANCOUVER POWER SQUADRON WHICH I SEE
YOU HAVE A LINK TO ON THE BOTTOM OF YOUR POST, ARE YOU A MEMBER? IS
THERE AN EVENING THAT WE CAN COME AND CHECK IT OUT?

THANKS AGAIN.

Yes, I'm as member of VPS (webmaster and radio instructor). We have a
christmas potluck dinner Monday Dec 10 at FCYC. Give me a phone call
for further information, or if you'd like me to come have a look at
your electrical problem - phone number is on the VPS website, under
"officers".


--
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:

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