AC Shore Power Plug Compatibility?

[Jarel Design]

Hello all,
Still refitting our boat for a trip to the San Juan Islands in July... (Working round the clock!!! Literally... Started at 5AM today and just stepped in to write this at 7PM!!!

I re-did our DC system, installing 200watt solar system and bought a new Pro Mariner 110v charger which brought me to looking into our existing AC system (not much, in fact not enough! No on board circuit breaker, no GFCI plugs...! OMG!!! And after that, I don't feel safe trusting that the previous owner wired up his boat plug correctly, so I'm going to open it up and wee what he did.

So I wanted a way to hook up our shore power cord to a 110v plug next to the boat (26', sits on a trailer), so I could test out our AC system. I bought the parts to make a short (1') adapter that would accept the shore power cord. The original owner made up his own cord (GREAT cord... inferior plugs... The big box plug won't fit our boat plug (Just learned that there's a difference between an L6-30R and an L5-30R (I got the wrong one! LOL! I have to laugh, or I'll just cry... I've been working on this boat since October of last year with every minute I could find.)

So... I decided to replace the shore power cords with new marine plugs.

Of course (with all that I do... I researched... a LOT!!!!) I found a website (sorry, I forgot to save the link...my head is spinning as I wasn't counting on working on this aspect of our boat...yet.) The writer shared that Hubble shore hook ups will not accept a "properly locking" Marinco shore power plug... It fits, but doesn't rotate and lock and sometimes slips out...

Then I looked into our boat and the boat plug is a Hubbell... (Since I'm not happy with what I've found, I'm going to take it apart to make sure the wires are in the right place (as also build a double pole cirucit breaker box with GFIC plug in our cockpit locker to plug our battery charger into)

I found a shore power plug (to shore) at Defender ("Furrion") for only $19...

Other brands are:

Marinco
Hubbell
Connteek
Furrion

Has anyone here every had problems fitting their shore power plug into a dock receptacle because of brand incompatibility? Any advice?

Thank you!

Richard

I'm going to take a break now... Kind of... New teak companionway hatch slides need another coat of WEST.... then I'll call it a day! LOL!

[Mitch K]

Richard,
I am no expert on shore power plugs, but I have a new Marinco cable with factory plug, and three shore power receptacles. A marinco, an unbranded and a Hubble. I just went out to the garage, and test fit them. The marinco plug fits fine, turns to lock, and the black plastic collar screws on and makes everything secure on all three receptacles. I would think, that if there was a problem with the Hubble plug, there would be a problem with the receptacle too. Hopefully this was helpful.

Mitch

[Jarel Design]

Mitch,
Thank you so much for doing that!

Your evaluation makes total sense and eases my concerns a lot.

I went to an electrical supply place locally and found a 220v L5-30R cord receptical and it fit my boat's Hubble plug like a glove! (The L6-30R version of the same plug couldn't even be pushed in.)

I'm going to bring this new plug with me, but purchase the Furrion plug from Defender and attach that to my shore power plug. With both, I'm pretty sure I should be fine. (Whew! Another item crossed off my long "to-do" list.)

Thank you again for going out of your way to check... That helped a LOT!

Best,
Richard