Shore Power on 2003 Fiesta Vee 270 Tripping GFCI

ron1ma

Hi All.

Searching to see if any Rinker owners have experienced this problem and what the possible cause turned out to be?  I know it is most likely an open ground or something, but would be great if there was a common area to look for.

Thanks in advance...

Ron S.

Dude_Himself

Is the boat on a trailer or in the water?

Stodge

Might want to check the shore power connector.  Can always replace the GFCI outlet and see if the problem persists.  That will tell you if the outlet was bad or the problem is downstream (another outlet).

ron1ma

Hi.

@ dude_Himself...  The boat is in the water now but did the same thing when it was home on the trailer, so I swapped out the GFCI breaker with a standard one and then it worked just fine.

@ Stodge... Thanks will do.  Like I said above it works with a normal breaker so I am assuming it is an open somewhere.

Stodge

Maybe I misunderstood.  Do you mean the GFCI outlet in the galley is tripping, or the breaker in the shore power box itself it tripping?

Dude_Himself

Can't plug a boat into newer GFCI as far as I know - https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/maintenance/why-some-boaters-suddenly-cant-connect-to-shore-power

I have the same issue at my place, I have an old "dumb" plug on a lockout that I use just for the boat or to backfeed the house from the generator.

Dude_Himself

Here's another great article with solutions on the boat wiring to make it new standard compatible:

https://waggonerguide.com/elci-protected-shore-power/

ron1ma

@ Stodge..   it is the gfi from the dock itself.  Does the same thing at my house as well.  

@ dude_himself....    thanks i will check out these articles...   much appreciated...

Stodge

Ah ok.  I thought you meant the outlet in the boat.  I'm in the process of putting a power pole on my dock and was told I'd need a GFCI breaker in the house panel for it.  Guess I better read these articles too.

ron1ma

Ya they are getting pretty strict about that.  I am going to use the articles Dude_Himself attached and am going to go through mine this weekend, so it finally works with GFCI.

Good luck with yours Stodge.

Aqua_Aura

I have run into this problem at a marina we are visiting. I can get power turned on to the main AC panel but if I select anything else it trips. Wondering if the neutral and ground share a bar behind the panel? 

Any of you ever resolve your issues?

LaRea

Try this:  turn all of the breakers on your power panel OFF, connect to shore power, then turn on the breakers one at a time.  See if you can find one breaker that consistently trips the GFCI.  

Aqua_Aura

Did that and no matter what I turn on it trips. After reading this seems like a big problem to try and resolve. Thankfully this is a marina we don't visit often and we have the generator but I would like to find the issue. 

Grahamu

If it's fine at your marina and others it's probably the the power supply at the other marina

Aqua_Aura

It's not the marina, It is the new GFCI shore power they are using. This is a newly refurbished Marina so they are using GFCI shore power as this is the new standard. We spoke to the marina maintenance and he was explaining to us as the tenants had lots of issues when they changed out all the shore power to the GFCI type. 

Grahamu

@Aqua_Aura,. I have heard that the new GFCI pedestals can cause problems, did the maintenance guy know why

Aqua_Aura

Well without getting to technical and long winded. It's basically detecting a leak from the ground to the neutral wire in the boat. Neutral and grounds can sometimes share a bus and this could be the cause. The "leak" limits on a GFCI are very high tolerance compared to a normal breaker and that's why it trips. 


I don't think I'll give this much thought since it's only those one marina but I will look further into it. Lots of articles on it. 

Grahamu

@Aqua_Aura, I cannot believe this did not come to mind, thank you for jogging my memory bank. This all has to do with the bonding system used on boats to tie all the underwater metal parts, metal thru-hulls, shafts, props rudders, together, usually a heavy gauge green wire. It is also connected to the ground circuit of the shorepower system. This can cause a couple of problems one being corrosion which I won't get into. The main reason for the new GFCI shorepower is that several people, including a young boy have died while in the water next to a boat connected to shorepower. The boat had stray current from neutral to ground and then into the bonding system and causing an electrical field in the water. The new system prevents that.
 I seem to recall some hot water tanks had  slight leakage to ground, enough to trip the GFCI breaker but not enough to cause harm.
Most marinas post signs about not swimming. 

Aqua_Aura

That is going to be my first check is my ground bus bars to check for any shared connections. I get the point of having it for safety just was caught off guard in seeing it in use. 

Aqua_Aura

I finally decided to open my panel 2 years later 😂. This looks like the neutral and ground are sharing the bus so I guess if I move all my green to one bus and all the white to the other they are no shared anymore. After doing a little reading this makes sense a little more. The boat is basically the sub panel and sub panels don't tie the ground and neutral bar as the main panel will do that. The do however get tied together when using the generator and the input source selector should do this when selecting generator. Not sure how I am gonna make sense of the panel here though, need to do some investigating to see what goes where.