Shore power and Travel power

[arthor]

Good evening.

After owning our boat for a year, I've finally sussed the inverter. What I haven't got my head round is the shore power and travel power. There is a rotary switch with shore/off/gen. 

Am I correct in thinking that when underway, Travelpower does the job that shorepower does when hooked up? Assuming I select gen on the rotary switch.

We have two sets of skts with some marked mains only. 

Until I suss this, the washing machine is pretty much a white elephant.

[Tracy D'arth]

Travel power is a misnomer really. It is designed to give you 240v AC power when you're moored without a shore line because you have to run the engine at 1500 RPM.

 

Do you have 12v and 240v sockets?  The 240v sockets should be the ones that work on either shore power, inverter or travel power.

 

So switch in off and inverter on should give you 240v power when cruising and moored.

Switch in Gen should connect the travel power and in Shore when you have the shore line plugged in.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Tracy D'arth

[Tony Brooks]

I think that you need to test your wirirng to see what the marked and unmarked sockets do but do it without any form of shore power.

 

The gen position on the switch probably connects your Travelpower to at least some of the domestic 240V AC circuits. I would hope that the Travelpower is connected to a mains battery charger because it often takes the place of the domestic alternator. If so I doubt it connects via that switch but it might.  can't be 100% sure about it.

[Tony Brooks]

5 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Switch in Gen should connect the travel power and in Shore when you have the shore line plugged in.

 

Are you sure or is that just slack wording. That makes it sound as if the switch will connect both the incoming shoreline and the Travelpower output together ans as far as I am aware the Travel power can not sync to the mains so magi,  expensive smoke it likely to result.

 

As no mentions was made about an inverter I would suggest when switched to "shore" the shoreline is connected to at least some mains sockets. When "off" the sockets are isolated, and when at "gen" the Travelpower supplies at least some of the sockets.

 

With no photo or description of the sockets we don't know if some are in fact 12V DC sockets. If so I just hope the 12V ones are not standard 13A domestic sockets.

[nicknorman]

24 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Travel power is a misnomer really. It is designed to give you 240v AC power when you're moored without a shore line because you have to run the engine at 1500 RPM.

 

Do you have 12v and 240v sockets?  The 240v sockets should be the ones that work on either shore power, inverter or travel power.

 

So switch in off and inverter on should give you 240v power when cruising and moored.

Switch in Gen should connect the travel power and in Shore when you have the shore line plugged in.

Not sure where you get the 1500rpm from. Red herring. The travel power will work at idle upwards, but if you want more than 1kw or so you need to run a bit above idle. It will give full output by about 1300rpm. There is no reason not to use the travel power whilst cruising, except that if you have a heavy load (2kw or more) it struggles if you slow to pass moored boats etc.

32 minutes ago, arthor said:

Good evening.

After owning our boat for a year, I've finally sussed the inverter. What I haven't got my head round is the shore power and travel power. There is a rotary switch with shore/off/gen. 

Am I correct in thinking that when underway, Travelpower does the job that shorepower does when hooked up? Assuming I select gen on the rotary switch.

We have two sets of skts with some marked mains only. 

Until I suss this, the washing machine is pretty much a white elephant.

Yes this is about right, just be aware that for heavy loads the travel power needs to be run a fair bit above idle. But for example with a washing machine, the heavy power drain is only during the first part of the wash cycle when it’s heating the water. For the second part of the wash, rinsing and spinning, the power consumption is fairly low and the travel power will work fine at idle. Of course you might also have to switch on the travel power either using the rocker switch on the box, or using the remote panel if you have one.

[arthor]

People on here are such a help and as always, I very much appreciate it.

We have 3 sets of skts. Round pin are 12v. Square pin are off the inverter. Square pin marked MAINS ONLY are the shorepower ones and also the Travelpower as I've today from the replies. Now I'm happy about the relationship between shore and travel, I have a start.

I'm not getting anything from the washer so I'm thinking it's a hands and knees job looking in the cupboards to see where it is plugged in, rather than assume it is.

 

[Tonka]

1 hour ago, nicknorman said:

Not sure where you get the 1500rpm from. Red herring. The travel power will work at idle upwards, but if you want more than 1kw or so you need to run a bit above idle. It will give full output by about 1300rpm. There is no reason not to use the travel power whilst cruising, except that if you have a heavy load (2kw or more) it struggles if you slow to pass moored boats etc.

Yes this is about right, just be aware that for heavy loads the travel power needs to be run a fair bit above idle. But for example with a washing machine, the heavy power drain is only during the first part of the wash cycle when it’s heating the water. For the second part of the wash, rinsing and spinning, the power consumption is fairly low and the travel power will work fine at idle. Of course you might also have to switch on the travel power either using the rocker switch on the box, or using the remote panel if you have one.

The older travel power units could only generate at a fixed speed. Mine has to have the engine running at 800 rpm before the control box allows it to come on-line 

[Slow and Steady]

2 hours ago, arthor said:

People on here are such a help and as always, I very much appreciate it.

We have 3 sets of skts. Round pin are 12v. Square pin are off the inverter. Square pin marked MAINS ONLY are the shorepower ones and also the Travelpower as I've today from the replies. Now I'm happy about the relationship between shore and travel, I have a start.

I'm not getting anything from the washer so I'm thinking it's a hands and knees job looking in the cupboards to see where it is plugged in, rather than assume it is.

 

Could be set up so the heavy loads like your washing machine and calorifier won't work off the inverter which is a good fail safe for power outage on shoreline as you wouldn't know if that happened until your batteries were flat... but on balance I think I'd rather have mine where all the mains will run off travel power, shore line or inverter and just switch off the inverter when plugged into the mains. Travel power is connected to feed the charger on my boat which also has a 175A domestic alternator.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Slow and Steady

[nicknorman]

2 hours ago, Tonka said:

The older travel power units could only generate at a fixed speed. Mine has to have the engine running at 800 rpm before the control box allows it to come on-line 

Must be ancient then because the whole point of a travel power is that the whirlyround bit produces high voltage dc which is then inverted to ac 50Hz by the magic box. But in reality I suspect it might be more down to the pulley ratios and engine operating speeds. Our engine idles at 850rpm so an 800rpm minimum isn’t an issue.

But regardless, there is no need to run at the fixed 1500rpm specified by Tracy. He is confusing that with a basic (non-inverter) generator that needs to run at a specified rpm to make the output 50Hz, 1500 or 3000 depending on the number of poles.

[Tonka]

14 hours ago, nicknorman said:

Must be ancient then because the whole point of a travel power is that the whirlyround bit produces high voltage dc which is then inverted to ac 50Hz by the magic box. But in reality I suspect it might be more down to the pulley ratios and engine operating speeds. Our engine idles at 850rpm so an 800rpm minimum isn’t an issue.

But regardless, there is no need to run at the fixed 1500rpm specified by Tracy. He is confusing that with a basic (non-inverter) generator that needs to run at a specified rpm to make the output 50Hz, 1500 or 3000 depending on the number of poles.

1994 was the year it was installed , Engine is a BD3 which ticks over at 400 rpm. Max revs is about 1200