Low shore power voltage

180, 190 whatever it takes.... Mr. Mom fans out there

Sorry,.. if the marina is supplying you with 190 volts after their boosting transformer, what is the voltage after YOUR boosting transformer under load ?

It'd be interesting to know the " no load" voltage too.

You have to realize that to make voltage, current draw goes up. So if your at 180/190vac drawing 50 amps, your boost transformer ramps up to 200/220vac, current draw could go up over 60amps. And, That IsoBoost xfrmr is getting hot.
AND, somebody else on the dock is getting less juice if your drawing all the current.
It's always better not to be on the end of the dock.

Another note; Ive noticed some off-brand handheld dvm's on the market that are in use. They can read RMS and P/P. Some errors could be the meter not set up correctly and you think your reading the low voltage. Please ensure your reading P/P. The old analog meters on board are crude but usually close enough to give the experienced owner an idea.

That 208vac comment is from the Y transformers you see half way down the docks lately. 208vac is fine to use, but your auto IsoBoost will still kick in and ramp up the vac and current. popped breakers, people think there is a problem but it's induced over current. Ugly circle.

Bottom line;
There are a lot of docks and marinas out there with great electric problems. I wish there was a data base available for people to update & consult to.
There are allot of boats out there that have problems also.
Put these two together and there is going to be confusion and finger pointing.

If your a transit and you don't like the vac, report it and protect you boat.
If your permanent, report it and protect your boat. Your boat is your investment and needs protection, including moving to another dock/marina.
Word of mouth (and maybe one day a data base) may provide enough pressure to the dock owners to improve their service.
Also, this data base could be helpful for the dock owners to identify problem boats, they are out there; I have refused to work on some of them.

I liked that site. I'll poke more around it soon.
thx,

208v is the bare minimum you want to run...190v is way too low and asking for problems... If my marina was only providing 190v I d be looking for another one, which obviously any not be feasible

I m not sure I understand how th second transformer is only used by the galley... That doesn't make much sense. As mentioned Earlier in the thread the earlier hatts like mine do not have transformers but from what I have seen, there should be two and they are between the inlets and the panels which makes it impossible to feed only the galley.

Yes I understand you are trying to learn. There are two major areas of concern I have. It appears this may be an ongoing issue with the locations the boat will be cruising to.

First of all understand that in order for the voltage to drop from say 208 to 180 or (170) the energy is being used somewhere. Bad connection, bad wires, bad transformer? Who knows But that's a lot of heat in the wiring. To require 3 booster transformers to get it back to "normal" is using a lot more energy. So now we most likely have something cooking in the circuit. Hopefully not on your boat but what ever it is is likely to short out at some point. What is going on with the safety ground (bare wire) in all this circuitry mess? Now you hope that you are running the A/C units at the bare minimum voltage. This means you are at maximum current which is further stressing the wiring in the boat. If you aren't getting the boost you hope you are then you are running even more current through everything. What causes the voltage to be so low? If it is an overstressed grid then does the voltage return to normal as the load drops through the night? Where does that leave the triple boosted voltage?

Second issue: It doesn't seem like you are checking enough voltages. Maybe you are but not posting them? Since you have 240V appliances and 120V appliances you should have two 120V lines that are 180 degrees out of phase and combine to give you single phase 240V. With 208V power you typically have 3 120V single phase lines that are out of phase by 120 degrees and give you 208V across any two of them. If the marina is boosting the 208V circuit what is that doing to your 120V circuit? You need to check all voltages or you may be replacing a lot of equipment before its time.

I'm not an electrical engineer (my sister is though) and this is not a comprehensive explanation but think of it this way - Would you run a boat that had any of its major systems jury rigged this way?