Weird Reverse Polarity Indication

TonyG13

Been going back and forth to the boat all winter. Plug into shore power upon arrival to charge batteries. All has been good.

Launching on Wednesday, so when I was at the boat last Friday yard owner said OK to keep it plugged in to have batteries charged for launch.

When I got to boat today, house battery was dead and main breaker in engine compartment for the house battery was tripped. Checked shore power and showed charger working. Reset breaker and looks like it is charging fine.

Now the weird part - I was looking at the cabin electrical panel and when I flipped the switch for "Panel Lights" on the DC (lower) panel the Reverse Polarity light/indicator came on and it lights it up on the Air Conditioning circuit which isn't even plugged in. I flipped every other switch on both panels and it's the only one that lights up Reverse Polarity.

I've flipped that switch many times in the past and never had this happen.

Any ideas?

Grahamu

Maybe you had an electrical spike, any lightning during that time away

TonyG13

No storms, but the guy next to me is working on his boat. Wonder if he tripped a shared building outlet breaker (or GFCI) at some point?

Grahamu

But what would trip your house battery breaker which is DC not AC

Pat310

I had same issue this winter almost exactly as you described only it happened while I was there so no breaker popping.Even worse when I touched the drive I got a low current tingle. When I spoke with yard foreman he said most likely shore power plug on the boat which are 18 yrs old. Changed both of mine and my problem went away. Hope this helps

Pat310

The other thing that was odd was ac meter reading about 60 volts