STB
Guru
I've had my present boat, a 1981 trawler, for about 5-6 weekends and a very small few whole weeks and am still going through everything and ran into a mystery.
An exterior 120VAC outlet wasn't working and I traced what seemed to be the problem back to the black wire being disconnected at a wiring block in the engine room that was labeled 120VAC.
I figured water was probably leaking into the outlet so a PO disconnected it. I took the opportunity to upgrade it and the other outside outlet to GFCI with new enclosures. But, this one outlet wouldn't reset.
I went to the engine room and put a meter on the terminal block wires. That's when things got weird. Green, yellow, black 12 AWG wires.
-- 16.6V **AC** green to yellow
-- 1.5V **AC** yellow to black
-- 14.64 **AC** green to black
Also observed:
-- No meaningful DC component measured.
-- Turning off one of the 120VAC outlet breakers makes the voltage go away
-- No other breakers make a difference
-- The other outlets on that breaker work fine.
-- I called the PO and the PPO representing 15+ years of ownership. They know nothing about it and think it is really strange.
Not yet measured/observed
-- It seems that there could be at least one thing on that circuit I don't know about, so there could be more.
-- Behavior under load
-- Waveform
-- Current on circuit with nothing plugged into outlets.
This trip is actually a carpetting trip, so I don't have a current clamp for my meter or my oscilloscope on me. I'll bring those next time. So, for now I just wired the outlet to known-good power and it works fine.
I obviously need to chase that wire next trip. Until then, anyone have any ideas what on a boat,might show AC voltages like that? I was thinking maybe something like a doorbell transformer, but those are, I think, 24VAC.
Thanks!
-Greg
An exterior 120VAC outlet wasn't working and I traced what seemed to be the problem back to the black wire being disconnected at a wiring block in the engine room that was labeled 120VAC.
I figured water was probably leaking into the outlet so a PO disconnected it. I took the opportunity to upgrade it and the other outside outlet to GFCI with new enclosures. But, this one outlet wouldn't reset.
I went to the engine room and put a meter on the terminal block wires. That's when things got weird. Green, yellow, black 12 AWG wires.
-- 16.6V **AC** green to yellow
-- 1.5V **AC** yellow to black
-- 14.64 **AC** green to black
Also observed:
-- No meaningful DC component measured.
-- Turning off one of the 120VAC outlet breakers makes the voltage go away
-- No other breakers make a difference
-- The other outlets on that breaker work fine.
-- I called the PO and the PPO representing 15+ years of ownership. They know nothing about it and think it is really strange.
Not yet measured/observed
-- It seems that there could be at least one thing on that circuit I don't know about, so there could be more.
-- Behavior under load
-- Waveform
-- Current on circuit with nothing plugged into outlets.
This trip is actually a carpetting trip, so I don't have a current clamp for my meter or my oscilloscope on me. I'll bring those next time. So, for now I just wired the outlet to known-good power and it works fine.
I obviously need to chase that wire next trip. Until then, anyone have any ideas what on a boat,might show AC voltages like that? I was thinking maybe something like a doorbell transformer, but those are, I think, 24VAC.
Thanks!
-Greg
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