Marina shore power issue - breaker triggers and A/C protection

[Piscis]

Never planned to stay long in Marina. But because of ongoing repairs after lightning, we stay longer than planned...

Having two ssues/questions that might be related:

First: Quick Battery charger (Model 700 - 60 A) is connected via a 10 A breaker fuse to shore power. Sometimes the breaker triggers and I have to reconnect/switch manually ON again. That happens sometimes once a week, sometimes twice a day. Quick customer support suggested voltage spikes from shore power. Tired of turning the breaker on manually. Any device you guys recommend to connect in line the power supply for the Charger that cuts power in case and reconnecting again automatically?

Or could you imagine the problem itself comes from the charger trying to pull more then the rated breaker making it open?

Second: once or twice a week, having shore power outages in Marina. I run my domestic fridge only via inverter, so the compressor stays protected from the issue of ON and OFF shore power.
However, my Dometic 230V Air-conditioning Compressor and/or Electronics might get damaged from that ongoing power cut issue. Again: what electric equipment would you recommend to install in line to protect the AC compressor/electronics from getting damaged from that power issue? Installed are two separate 16000BTU units.

Thanks in advance!

John

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by Piscis

First: Quick Battery charger (Model 700 - 60 A) is connected via a 10 A breaker fuse to shore power. Sometimes the breaker triggers and I have to reconnect/switch manually ON again. That happens sometimes once a week, sometimes twice a day. Quick customer support suggested voltage spikes from shore power. Tired of turning the breaker on manually.

Do you mean this is the breaker on the boat side? Not the marina's power pedestal?

If so... I've read breakers can go bad, over time. And we've had a couple breakers in the past that stopped working properly...

Could be just replacing the breaker might be an easy solution, if that's what the problem turns out to be.

-Chris

[Piscis]

Thanks Chris. Yes, there is a dedicated breaker on the boat, only for the charger. Additionally, there is the shore power box on the vessel with 63A breakers AND on the shore side the breaker switches at the connection box.

First thing i did was to replace the breaker. Same issue, triggering once in a while...

John

[Tin Tin]

Check the terminals (with power off) to the back of circuit breaker to see if they have been blackened by the lightning strike, could be the CB is faulty or treminals just need to be cleaned up. Check also the ac and dc terminals on the battery charger for same symptoms and or corrosion., Get an electrician to change out the panel CB they are not very expensive, and that will eliminate one issue. Check the lead from CB to BC examine for melted covers. Same for Aircon.

[ttex]

Assuming the breaker is correctly rated for the application I would suggest looking for a loose or corroded connection somewhere between the charger and the breaker.

[Statistical]

Check all your connections for tightness and or corrosion. Might be worthwhile to remove and clean the contacts with alcohol just to be sure. Do so for both the panel end and the charger end. While doing that inspect the wiring for any signs of arcing or other damage.

If you find nothing wrong with the wiring then replace the breaker with another one. Temporarily if there is a circuit with same amperage you don't need you could just use that breaker as a test. If the problem goes away using the new breaker then the breaker likely has just worn out. It does happen. Your boat is a 2017 so 6 years is pretty short lifespan on a breaker but sometimes you get a dud.

If after inspecting, cleaning, retigthening the wiring the issue continues with a different breaker then something is likely wrong with your battery charger. It seems at that point it is regularly drawing >100A which is a problem and the breaker is doing its job of keeping your boat from going up in flames however I would start with checking the cables and swapping the breaker first.

[Piscis]

Thank you very much.

I did change the breaker already with a new one.

Disconnected the charger, checked and retightened all terminals, DC and AC. Didn't help. Then I contacted Quick customer support and they think the reason is the Voltage fluctuations from shore power.
So you guys think this could not be the reason for the triggering breaker?
Because then I would install some kind of device inline the AC power supply from the charger that eliminates the high voltage peaks.

Any recommendations for such a device?

Thanks!

John

[Piscis]

Originally Posted by Tin Tin

Check the terminals (with power off) to the back of circuit breaker to see if they have been blackened by the lightning strike, could be the CB is faulty or treminals just need to be cleaned up. Check also the ac and dc terminals on the battery charger for same symptoms and or corrosion., Get an electrician to change out the panel CB they are not very expensive, and that will eliminate one issue. Check the lead from CB to BC examine for melted covers. Same for Aircon.

Thanks , Tin Tin. The connection cables are all fine, no signs of burns. I cannot really say if the problem is caused by the lightning strike, as we have not been at this dock before. Problems started when we docked at this berth.... However that was as well after the strike. Lol.

John

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by Piscis

Thank you very much.

I did change the breaker already with a new one.

Disconnected the charger, checked and retightened all terminals, DC and AC. Didn't help. Then I contacted Quick customer support and they think the reason is the Voltage fluctuations from shore power.
So you guys think this could not be the reason for the triggering breaker?
Because then I would install some kind of device inline the AC power supply from the charger that eliminates the high voltage peaks.

Any recommendations for such a device?

Thanks!

John

Voltage spikes could damage your equipment but it shouldn't be tripping a breaker. The breaker doesn't measure voltage only current.

Excessively LOW ac voltage could lead to excessively high amps but it would have to be crazy low.

This is a 12V charger? If so 60A @ 14.5V = 870W output. If it is at least 90% efficiency then that is input wattage 967W. At 120V that is 8.05A. Pulling >10A would be unusual and even if the voltage was slightly low it shouldn't pull it down that far. For example 108V would be 8.95A.

So I think customer support told you something to get you off the phone. While high voltage might damage your equipment if to high it would result in lower not higher current. 967W @ 130V = 7.43A.

[Piscis]

Thank you very much!

Actually it is a 230V System. But that is dropping current even more.
Understand your points and that really helps.

How about the problem in the Marina with shore power outages once in a while.. Couldnt that drop of Voltage to 0 cause the Charger drawing excessive current, triggering the breaker?

But I have to say, I could not see a correlation of shore power break down and breaker opening.
I do not see any physical occurrence on the vessel or at shore when the breaker triggers.

Thanks for helping!

John

[s/v Jedi]

You get a permanent fix with attached diagram.

The isolation transformer first makes sure the boat’s metals as well as crew is protected, plus it galvanically isolates shore power from the power you have aboard, suppressing transients etc.

I recommend to install a “whole house surge suppressor” both on the input and output of the transformer, making sure that shore side ground does not connect to ship side ground.

Next is the Multiplus that will assess incoming power and only when it’s good enough will accept it, start charging batteries and pass it on to the outputs.

If shore power is disrupted, the Multiplus OUT1 will continue on inverter uninterrupted, while OUT2 switches off until good power returns.

[GILow]

When you say the breaker is tripping, do you mean the over current breaker or the earth leakage breaker. (Residual current device or RCD)

I’ve seen situations where surges of current can induce enough current in the earth lead to trigger the rcd.

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by Piscis

Thank you very much!

Actually it is a 230V System. But that is dropping current even more.
Understand your points and that really helps.

How about the problem in the Marina with shore power outages once in a while.. Couldnt that drop of Voltage to 0 cause the Charger drawing excessive current, triggering the breaker?

But I have to say, I could not see a correlation of shore power break down and breaker opening.
I do not see any physical occurrence on the vessel or at shore when the breaker triggers.

Thanks for helping!

John

When the voltage is zero current is also zero. However if there are brownouts causing a voltage drop which eventually causes the marine power to trip them prior to voltage going completely to zero current would rise although I would expect low voltage detection in the charger to shut it off internally before amperage gets too high.

Just to be clear though the breaker on your shorepower inlet (either on the pedestal or main AC on the boat) is NOT tripping? It is only the breaker for the branch which powers the charger?

Your mains are 230V can you measure what it is on the boat. Also is the battery 12V or 24V? Just trying to figure out how many AC amps the charger is or should be drawing.

[SailingHarmonie]

Hmmmm...

Going back to the OP's first post...

because of ongoing repairs after lightning

Maybe I missed it in the discussion so far, but that seems like a possible, maybe even likely, cause of odd electrical gremlins, no?

This has nothing to do with the charger drawing too much current in normal operation. That ONLY happens with the batteries are low enough to accept it. Since he is plugged in to shore power all the time, it seems unlikely that the charger is working that hard, except right after recovery from a power failure, which hasn't been mentioned as a correlation.

My personnel experience with Quick chargers and the USA based Quick tech support is not good. Fragile, and prone to failure even well within specification operation.

[Piscis]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

You get a permanent fix with attached diagram.

The isolation transformer first makes sure the boat’s metals as well as crew is protected, plus it galvanically isolates shore power from the power you have aboard, suppressing transients etc.

I recommend to install a “whole house surge suppressor” both on the input and output of the transformer, making sure that shore side ground does not connect to ship side ground.

Next is the Multiplus that will assess incoming power and only when it’s good enough will accept it, start charging batteries and pass it on to the outputs.

If shore power is disrupted, the Multiplus OUT1 will continue on inverter uninterrupted, while OUT2 switches off until good power returns.

Thanks! The vessel has already a galvanic isolator. Installed is the PROSAFE FS60. Buying a new Charger would be the last step to do. And i dont want to spend lots of $$, just to find out that the problem is still occuring... LOL