Low shore power voltage

no voltage reading at the pedestal yet ????

Run the voltage boosters that are already on the boat, that is what they are there for. 190 is still way too low.

Indeed! I have been at a marina which for years could only deliver 208v, but that voltage was reliable. Last year we were lucky to get 190V. This also reflected on the 120v side. Customers were burning out compressors, refrigerators microwaves, everything. All my dock mates were complaining of a burned smell upon entering their boats. In response to near riot conditions, the owner installed step up transforms at the head of the dock - 240v is a wonderful thing. It's also amazing the effect it had on the 120v. For example, I did not reset my refrigerator after the upgrade and the next time I came back to the boat, everything in it was frozen! My oscillating fan that I previously ran on high, now runs on low very nicely. I know there are different configurations of wiring, and someone will educate me, but 190V might mean you're only getting 95 volts on the 120 side. Just another consideration and cause for concern?

If your built in volt meter doesn't have a switch to read the 120 side, just use a handheld volt meter at one of the outlets. Low voltage, so I am told, generates a tremendous heat surcharge which brings on premature failure of items requiring 110v

Other than current there is one additional problem with boosting the voltage that much. What happens if the dockside fault gets fixed?
And 180V instead of 240V is definitely a fault.

Say you boost by 1/3 to get back to 240V, in the moment the fault is removed you have 320V. Your appliances won't like that, neither will your insurance company.

Details, details, details ... not to worry, it's under control. Alles klar.

As I mentioned before, I am not very fond of electrics. But I had this problem on earlier boats, I owned. When I finally got sick of this problem, my boats got equipped with a global shore power converter.

This black box eats almost any voltage and frequency and converts it into the correct voltage and frequency for the boat. Plus it converts the 2, 3 or 4 wire shore systems into the correct setup onboard. These converters come in different sizes from below 6 KVA up to 500 KVA (for cruise ships ) and can be ordered for US or European boats. I do not believe, that any new larger yacht is leaving the yard nowadays without one of those wizards. And meanwhile they are available for smaller boats too. The rest is a stupid adapter issue.

With all those expensive non ohmic consumers on board modern boats, I would assure that the correct voltage, frequency and AC with a perfect sinus wave is available in the AC network of my boat at all times.

Below is a link about shore power problems and setups from a Nordhavn specialist. It explains this problem quite nicely, even for an electrical ignorant like me.

http://www.nordhavn.com/resources/tech/shore_power.php

Hi,

Ed, You could always join the big boats and run your genset 24/7 and have no problems with the dock power ever again.

I have the same problem at my marina where the voltage is rated at 208v. When the slips all get full in the summer and some of the commercial boats have high loads it is not uncommon for the voltage to drop to around 204v. My marina would not allow a transformer on the dock. I have seperate, isolated shore inputs port and stbd. I installed a step-up transformer on the stbd side only and mounted it in the lazarette. This brings my voltage up to about 240v - 244v depending on incoming voltage. When I travel to another marina that already has 240v or 250v I just plug in to the port side and the transformer is not used.
I don't know if this is an option for you. I can find the specs and transformer model if that would help. I think Charles also makes an automatic device that accepts multiple input voltages and adjusts output accordingly but I think the boost is limited to something like 13%.