220V AC 50Hz to 110V AC 60Hz

[TPG]

Wanted to see if anyone has experienced any issues with marina shore power where you have a U.S. boat with standard 110V AC circuits running "American" type appliances.

How do you overcome issues when shore power is 220V and 50Hz? I have read that you use a step-down transformer but that does not solve the 50Hz issue when your appliances run on 60Hz.

Would love to hear some real-world instances and what your thoughts are.

(Of course, you can have a giant battery bank and a massive inverter, but then you are solely relying on that system.)

[steve77]

Look at the nameplates on all of your 120 Volt devices. You may find that a surprising number will run on 50 Hz.

We left the US in 2015, and haven’t seen 60 Hz shore power since we left. Before leaving, I checked our 120 Volt equipment (water heater, air conditioner, inverter/charger, and microwave). All were rated for 50 Hz except the inverter/charger. I corresponded with Xantrex who couldn’t give me a reason why it wouldn’t work, but they said they couldn’t recommend operation at anything other than 60 Hz.

I went ahead with our trip to Europe and have not had a problem with 50 Hz power anywhere we have gone. If you are interested, I installed a Charles Marine isolation transformer which can also be configured as a step down transformer to give me 120 Volts on board.

Cheers!

Steve

[Freedom45]

I have been using 240v 50hz converted to 120v with transformer. So far no issues for a few years with any appliances, vacuum, microwave etc on 50hz. I will not run AC, it states 60hz only. I think it is hit or miss if items will work. I noticed my Dewalt sander is 120v DC, so it doesn’t care about hz. 120v Victron battery charger works okay. I now have parallel 240v system off inverter because I have accumulated 240v stuff.