Not sure what happened!

[tiltrider1]

This is a follow up.

After discussions with an Electrical Engineer at Magnum and multiple posts on TF, I became convinced that I had possibly misplaced a neutral between the inverter side of the panel and the non inverter side. I pulled off and identified every neutral wire. Finally I came to one neutral wire that was both causing the problem and could not be identified. Everything on the boat is working and working correctly with the ELCI.

I do however, still have this one white wire that I can’t identify. For now it’s capped and labeled. Maybe some day we will identify it. There are two breakers on the panel that are not identified and one that was decommissioned. I am not certain if this is a related neutral and have no easy way to identify this.

In the mean time I’m happy to have a new inverter and a properly functioning ELCI.

 

[IRENE]

Thanks for the follow-up. We are on course to rectify a similar issue soon in Seattle (thank you credit to Sunchaser)!

Best Wishes

 

[Comodave]

This is a follow up.

After discussions with an Electrical Engineer at Magnum and multiple posts on TF, I became convinced that I had possibly misplaced a neutral between the inverter side of the panel and the non inverter side. I pulled off and identified every neutral wire. Finally I came to one neutral wire that was both causing the problem and could not be identified. Everything on the boat is working and working correctly with the ELCI.

I do however, still have this one white wire that I can’t identify. For now it’s capped and labeled. Maybe some day we will identify it. There are two breakers on the panel that are not identified and one that was decommissioned. I am not certain if this is a related neutral and have no easy way to identify this.

In the mean time I’m happy to have a new inverter and a properly functioning ELCI.

Our boat would blow the GFIs on docks as soon as we plugged it in. Found all the neutrals from both shore power inlets were tied to one bus. I replaced the main panel and traced out all the hots and neutrals and separated the neutrals and fixed the GFI problem. However when we were done I had 4 neutrals that I could not identify where they went. Over the last year I have identified 3 of them so I am down to 1 unidentified neutral and everything works. I have it taped off and if I ever find something that doesn’t work I will try it. But for now everything works so I am not going to worry about it.

 

[tiltrider1]

Our boat would blow the GFIs on docks as soon as we plugged it in. Found all the neutrals from both shore power inlets were tied to one bus. I replaced the main panel and traced out all the hots and neutrals and separated the neutrals and fixed the GFI problem. However when we were done I had 4 neutrals that I could not identify where they went. Over the last year I have identified 3 of them so I am down to 1 unidentified neutral and everything works. I have it taped off and if I ever find something that doesn’t work I will try it. But for now everything works so I am not going to worry about it.

That is were I am at. One wire, not attached and as far as I can tell everything on the boat is working.

I want to add, it didn’t matter what buss I attached this neutral to, the result was always tripping the ELIC. One possibility is that this wire was not attached and that while hooking up the neutrals I unknowingly came across it and added it by mistake. The other possibility would have to be two different failures at the same time. For now I am going to be content with a properly working boat.

 

[twistedtree]

You might be done messing with this, and I would certainly understand that, but if you still have interest....



I'd be curious whether there is continuity from that orphan white wire to your green wire ground system.


And I gather it's impractical to trace the wire? That's all too often the case on a boat....

 

[Comodave]

When President built my boat they used individual white and black wires, not triplex wiring, so I had no idea which neutral went with which hot. So I had to ring out each neutral to figure out which one went with which hot. Once I had figured out which neutral went with which hot I could hook that neutral to the correct neutral bus bar, I had to add a second neutral bus bar. Then I had 4 neutrals left over. Over the last year I have found where 3 of them went. The 4th one was obviously added after the boat was built because the boat had forked connectors on all the wires and the last neutral has a ring connector on it. Everything works now so I am not worried about it. I had an extension cord that I had put a regular GFI on the end so I used it for checking the boat. I plugged a 15 amp to 30 amp adapter into the extension cord and then plugged the boat into the 30 amp adapter. Then I could teat each circuit to make sure they didn’t trip the GFI. Overall the process took me 3 days to replace the main power panel and doo all the tracing of the wiring. I also had to do all the 12 volt circuits since the new power panel has both 12 volt and 120 volt on it. I built a teak cabinet to hold the new panel and it hinges open so I can easily get to the back to access the wiring. The wiring was a mess after 30 years of POs work on it. Found lots of orphan wires and cleaned it up as best I could.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. C. Now that there is just plain purty!

 

[foggysail]

This may or may not be interesting or helpful.

There are two types of inverters that I know of, ones with an internal 50/60Hz power transformer between it and the loads and the so called designed for vehicles sold on Ebay and Amazon. The ones without transformers are very light compared to the weight of those that do.

I explained the basics of the so called ‘’vehicle’’ inverters someplace earlier. They work and are reasonably priced; both pseudo and true sine wave. The problem is those without internal power transformers do not have a grounded conductor as does normal AC power. Each side of the output terminals electrically changes between a peak voltage around 175V and zero. When one side is high the other is low which happens at the line frequency (50 or 60Hz).

If the boat’s internal wiring does not marry the grounded (white wire) conductor to the grounding (green wire) the inverter might work fine. The gotcha occurs when you use dock power (maybe even generator) where the grounding and grounded conductors get tied together in a distribution panel which will short circuit the inverter’s output.

 

[foggysail]

greetings,
mr. C. Now that there is just plain purty!

YES, it certainly is!

 

[Comodave]

Thanks. The wiring still isn’t too pretty but compared to when I bought the boat it is way better.

 

[FoxtrotCharlie]

I've had too many friends/acquaintances where their inverter/charger was causing such problems. When we bought our boat about a year ago the Xantrex inverter/charger was not working - had shorted out and was causing many problems. Could not get it out of the boat fast enough! Installed a stand alone 3000W pure sine wave inverter connected to three circuits - frig, ice maker and 110 outlets. Separate 40 amp charger covers the two banks. Also installed a Galvanic Isolator. Have had zero problems plugging into multiple marinas so far.