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kartracer

Guru
Joined
Aug 5, 2014
Messages
529
Location
USA
Vessel Name
M/V LUNASEA
Vessel Make
45ft Bluewater Coastal
After being on the hook for three days and now back at the marina it seems that all my appliances and A/Cs work better on city power than gen power. A/Cs and Ref seems to cool better on city power. Could that be or is it just me...
 
Could be the power factor and sine wave shape is significantly different. Need an oscilloscope to see the difference. Not worth the effort.
 
Check your generator's voltage under load. A simple multi meter should be able to tell you. Could be that the rpm is low under load. You might also have a wiring problem. If the wire from the generator to your breaker panel is under sized, thst could explain low voltage. Some simple checking could turn up an easily fixable problem.

Ted
 
Where is the generator? Is it adding heat to the hull city power isn't?
 
It usually takes about a 12KW noisemaker to have a power output similar to shore power.

There is a lot less umph in the sine wave of smaller units.(Area under the curve)

Mostly heavy loads will notice , like air cond.

Similar results with inverters , the sine wave is better for big induction loads , but a cheapo inverter will still do fine if you can wait an extra minuet on the microwave , or coffee machine.
 
It's perhaps a stretch, but is there any chance your generator is running at 50hz rather han 60hz? On many, it's just a non-descript lever on the injection pump that changes engine speed between 1500 and 1800 rpm. Maybe someone bumped it or switched it not knowing what it was.

A good multi meter will tell you voltage and frequency of the generator power, especially under load. Thats the first thing to check.
 
Have the gen guy coming over during the week to check all out. Will then run on gen power for a day at marina just to see what happens. Thanks
 
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