diver dave
Guru
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2017
- Messages
- 2,570
- Location
- United States
- Vessel Name
- Coquina
- Vessel Make
- Lagoon 380
will this boat go to a 50Hz country? Not seeing any freq. specs yet.
So i guess only way to test the white wire is to run my shore power cable plug end into engine room next to transformer and do continuity test on ground terminal on cable to see if its also the white incoming wire?
Unhooked the green wire all together. With white wire only attached to Ground stud, everything still rings continuity no matter where I touch on the boat, case, mounting brackets, engine room door hinges, etc.
Yes, I checked ground stud all by its self, nothing. Then hooked back up green wire without the white incoming wire, still nothing. Tested white incoming wire all by its self not attached to anything, it rings continuity with anything metal on boat. White wire must be grounded somewhere on the boat, where I have no idea.
What happens if I just don't hook up white wire back to Iso Trans?
I'd check to see if the white wires are on the ground lug of the shore inlets. Also look to see if that terminal is isolated from the hull when it's mounted. Then find the selector switch to see how it's wired. If it's a rotary switch it may be confusing looking as there can be a lot of terminals on them depending on the model.
A lot of times people make mistakes merging the shore power and generator wiring. If everything comes together at that selector there's a good chance the problem is there.
You really might think about getting a professional to look at it if it looks complicated. It wouldn't take long if everything is opened up and you've done the groundwork of finding all the connections.
Pending confirmation that the two cables are input and output, here's what I think we are looking at:
1, 2, 3, 4 are the input side, and A, B, C, D are the output side.
Everything is wired correctly EXCEPT for the input neutral (white). It should not be connected to the ground lug, but instead should be disconnected and capped off.
It's also not clear whether the ground terminal is a chassis ground, or if it's an internal ground shield in the transformer. You could disconnect the wire that's internal to the transformer and meter it to see if it's isolated from the case or not. If it's isolated, then there are further problems. If it's a case ground then all is well, but there isn't an input-side ground shield which I suspect is common for older transformers. Note that the shore power ground is NOT brought to the transformer.
We made it down to Jacksonville and boat will stay here for the time being, the electrical at this marina works great with our system, same as the marina we stayed at night before in Fernandina.
I have no problems getting professional help, however in the past, I have hired 2 different "Electrical Experts" one in Maryland, and other in Virginia to help with other non-related electrical questions that we had. Only to spend about $1K on each separate instance and got absolutely nothing fixed and no questions answered.
Am sure there are some great "Electrical Experts" out there in the world, but so far I have not been able to find them, nor was I impressed with the 2 I have hired so far. Think most Electricians, AC/Heater, and Mechanics are all pretty much part replacement people now, most lack the fundamental understanding how to read, diagnose & trouble shoot an issues.
Was told by new boat neighbor at Marina in Jacksonville that there is a good electrician at marina, so maybe I will try this again and see if I can get lucky.
We made it down to Jacksonville and boat will stay here for the time being, the electrical at this marina works great with our system, same as the marina we stayed at night before in Fernandina.
Was told by new boat neighbor at Marina in Jacksonville that there is a good electrician at marina, so maybe I will try this again and see if I can get lucky.
We made it down to Jacksonville and boat will stay here for the time being, the electrical at this marina works great with our system, same as the marina we stayed at night before in Fernandina.
I have no problems getting professional help, however in the past, I have hired 2 different "Electrical Experts" one in Maryland, and other in Virginia to help with other non-related electrical questions that we had. Only to spend about $1K on each separate instance and got absolutely nothing fixed and no questions answered.
Am sure there are some great "Electrical Experts" out there in the world, but so far I have not been able to find them, nor was I impressed with the 2 I have hired so far. Think most Electricians, AC/Heater, and Mechanics are all pretty much part replacement people now, most lack the fundamental understanding how to read, diagnose & trouble shoot an issues.
Was told by new boat neighbor at Marina in Jacksonville that there is a good electrician at marina, so maybe I will try this again and see if I can get lucky.
Ranger, that is too funny. We also had issues at Golden Isles (St. Simons Island), which is where I was stopped at when I started this thread.
We also had issues at Harborwalk (Georgetown), we just moved next door to Hazzard Marina and had no issues.
We also had issues at Isle of Palms on their new pedestals, so they moved us to a different section that had older pedestals, no problem on the hooking up however they only had 208v at this section. We can't run AC/Heat on 208v everything else no prob. So we moved down to Toler's Cove a little closer to Charleston, had zero issues there.
We are at Lamb's currently which is right next door to Ortega.
If your power inlets are metallic body they must be isolated from the hull. The ground wire from shore must connect only to the electrostatic shield in the transformer, or you will always trip the dockside ground fault protection which is being installed everywhere. This is an easily overlooked item that in fact defeats the function of the isolation transformer, besides causing the fault trip with new GFI service.