Starboard side shore power issue

[scourge]

While in Put-In-Bay, OH this summer tied up at the dock, the dock master mentioned that they were having issues with their shore power. I was hooked up with two shore power cords on the starboard side of my 37' Jefferson Sundeck. I was running the A/C, when I noticed that the air had shut off. I looked at my panel and sure enough, one of the meters was now at 0. I went out side to check the power and noticed that the boat end of the shore power cords were warm. I tried a different cord and still no power. Then the other panel shut off. I moved the power cords to the port side and have full shore power coming in on the port side. I can not find any fuses between the shore power inlet connection on the boat and the panel. My switchs for the panel both have 'Shore 1', 'Shore 2', 'Off' and 'Gen'. Shore 1 is the starboard side inlet, Shore 2 is Port inlet, with two separate panels, one for each cord. When I now try to hook up shore power to the starboard side, I get 'VERY' low, maybe 20 volts on both my AC meters, again, one for each inlet/cord. What would cause this? What do I need to be looking at? This is a very new to me boat. Thanks.

 

[gm280]

:welcome: scourge to iboats. Nice to have you aboard...

Okay the very first thing I will say is, you need to be extremely careful with this until the real problem is found. I would certainly pull your panels open and test the inlet cables to those panels. And testing them means with a good quality meter for any possible shorts or opens. Sounds like something did short somewhere and that was the reason for warm cables. Any time any cable starts to get warm, too much current is flowing. So you have to open the panels up and start testing. And I would absolutely test without any power on first. Water and AC power do not go well together. JMHO

 

[Grandad]

In my experience, localized heat near a connection is most often caused by poor contact. In this case, I'd suspect either a poorly mating cord blade or a loose terminal where the boat's wiring connects to your electrical inlet. Once reaching a high enough temperature that you can feel the heat as it dissipates in the cord, the actual point where the problem started will be very hot & close to melt down. At that point, whatever contact you did have deteriorates to a point of no return. Once deteriorated, the circuit is compromised to the extent that the voltage available to the panel will be much reduced or absent.

I'd suggest that you remove the boat's inlet fitting and look for any discoloration or deformation, including heat damaged wire insulation. If you find a damaged terminal, if it's still serviceable, clean the cable and the terminal and then re-install, tightening adequately. Since the caliber of the boat's wiring is suspect, before touching any of these terminals, I'd make sure that the panel main breaker is off to isolate any possible backfeeds from an onboard converter. - Grandad