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power problem connecting to pedestal with GFI breakers
#1
Anyone having issues connecting to to pedestals with ground fault breakers?

Connected 2 shore power cordsets to 30 amp side on pedestal then boat as soon as I turn on cockpit breakers pedestal gfi’s trip. System on boat checked out fine.
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#2
You probably have a neutral (white) and ground (green) touching somewhere.

That seems to be a pretty common issue with Marina's upgrading the electrical. BoatUS had a good article on this last month. If I can find the article, I'll post it.

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Wasn't BoatUS, but here is the article I was referring to.

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#3
Had that problem this year in new marina even with all boat breakers off as soon as i plugged into receps on boat and flipped the mains at the shore power conns it would trip. so then i moved my cord to a different shore pedestal and it was fine. Called in the electrician who had installed the breakers and he fixed the problem by replacing the gfcis. This marina has had this issue with several boats.
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#4
Thanks for the quick replies. Had all breakers in boat off as well. Pointing towards pedestal gfci’s. Marina electrician mentioned they’re running into the issue regularly.
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reeltimebrad (06-05-2019)
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#5
(05-30-2018, 07:37 AM)Misdirection Wrote: [Only registered and activated users can see links Click here to register]

Wasn't BoatUS, but here is the article I was referring to.

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My Marina just upgraded all the pedestals and marina wiring to the new National Electric Code with GFCI pedestals and now when I plug in both 30 amp shore power cords and turn on breakers it trips the GFCI at the pedestals.  I can use one or the other power cord and everything works fine, but once I turn on the breaker for the second power cord both trip at the pedestal.  Any tips for troubleshooting appreciated.
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#6
Faulty gfci's were a problem for me also even though they had recently replaced them in all in the pedestals it seems a high number were faulty. Slip owner tried convincing me it was my boat because they had recently upgraded all the marina wiring.
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#7
(05-19-2019, 08:22 PM)3200Open Wrote: [Only registered and activated users can see links Click here to register]

Wasn't BoatUS, but here is the article I was referring to.

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My Marina just upgraded all the pedestals and marina wiring to the new National Electric Code with GFCI pedestals and now when I plug in both 30 amp shore power cords and turn on breakers it trips the GFCI at the pedestals.  I can use one or the other power cord and everything works fine, but once I turn on the breaker for the second power cord both trip at the pedestal.  Any tips for troubleshooting appreciated.My guess is somewhere you have the two shore power neutral circuits crossed.

Do you have two ac units on the different 30 amp main breakers and only one circulation pump? That is usually a culprit.

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#8
One thing you may want to try is if someone at your marina has a good quality 30 amp splitter, borrow that and test with a single 30 amp cord. That way, even if you do have neutrals crossed on your boat, you shouldn't be tripping the breaker.

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#9
(05-19-2019, 08:22 PM)3200Open Wrote: [Only registered and activated users can see links Click here to register]

Wasn't BoatUS, but here is the article I was referring to.

Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk

My Marina just upgraded all the pedestals and marina wiring to the new National Electric Code with GFCI pedestals and now when I plug in both 30 amp shore power cords and turn on breakers it trips the GFCI at the pedestals.  I can use one or the other power cord and everything works fine, but once I turn on the breaker for the second power cord both trip at the pedestal.  Any tips for troubleshooting appreciated.

The fact that you can use one or the other (and I’m assuming that you’re NOT changing the cables’ configuration when you do that) tends to point the finger at the pedestal.

If you have (or can borrow) two 30 amp to 15 amp converters you can verify the issue isn’t your boat. Hook up the converters and plug in two substantial loads (e.g. a portable compressor and a pressure washer). If you can operate both at the same time it’s NOT the pedestal. However, if the pedestal trips in this configuration it’s obviously the pedestal (as opposed to your boat).


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#10
So it seems that all the Tiara's at our marina have the same problem with the new GFCI pedestals. Some other brands are having problems as well. Here is what we found, the new NEC code for marina power pedestals require GFCI protected outlets for the shore power cords. These look for a maximum of 30 milliamperes max difference between the hot and neutral wires within the shore power feed, if the pedestal outlet sees anything more than 30 milliamperes difference between hot and neutral then it trips the pedestal breakers. On Tiara's, with (2) 30 amp shore cords, the neutral gets shared behind the main breaker panel and the pedestals cannot match the hot and neutrals because it cannot differentiate with shared neutral. The solution was to separate the shore 1 and shore 2 neutrals to 2 different bus bars(my boat had 2 neutral bus bars that were connected via jumper wire) keep the hots associated with its neutrals so that each shore power feed has its own dedicated hot and neutrals. On my boat, the only thing on shore power 2 is the cabin AC/Heat. Everything works fine now with not trips. Hope this helps others as they move to these new pedestals.
[-] The following 1 user Likes 3200Open's post:
Misdirection (07-04-2019)
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