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Electrical problem


embis

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First of all lets say it loud and clear, I know less about boat electrics than I should!

I arrived at the Marina last night after being away for two weeks to discover the leisure batteries were down to 8V and the power had tripped at the pillar. All electrics had been left turned off when we were last on the boat.

I reset the pillar and left the batteries charging with all power to the boat turned off. After about 4 hours we were up to 9V. I tried turning the inverter on, there were no appliances plugged in or turned on. Immediately the voltage dropped off to 8V, likewise if I turned the water pump on.

Overnight the leisure batteries have charged to 10V.

The inverter is a 700W  Sterling Pro Power S.  There are 4 lamps on the inverter which display as below:

Power:       LIT

OLP:         OFF

OVP/UPV:  OFF

OTP:         OFF

I have the engine running now and have unplugged from the pillar, The Inverter lights display as above. The voltage is now showing 13.5 Volts, however even with the engine running, there seems to be no power to the 240V system.

This may be a red herring but, since we bought the boat a year agot the Nav lights had never worked, they tripped immediately we turned them on. When we were last on the boat, two weeks ago they suddenly started functioning. Like I say, might be a red herring... but something drained the batteries and something tripped the pillar although the Nav lights were turned off when we left the boat last. The Bilge is bone dry, so the bilge pump hasn't been running.

 

Anyone got any clues? failing that, anyone know of a reliable marine electrician in the Thorne area?

 

If I am slow to say thank you for any replies, its because my laptop battery has died, not because I am ungrateful!!

Edited by embis
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Tripping the shore supply would be a problem on the 240v ac mains system of the boat.  This may have also caused your ‘trip’ (rcd) to open, did you check and reset?  As to the batteries going flat, there must be a load, either intentional, like an auto bilge pump, or unintentional like the inverter switching on when you lost the shore supply.  As it’s not clear how the boat is wired, and what exactly was isolated makes it hard to diagnose.

As an aside, lightening nearby can cause an rcd trip to operate, caused by leakage in something like an electric kettle which normally is not a problem and so very difficult to find without specialist gear, but you may also have water in a connection or other fault.

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Thank you. Ran the engine for an hour and the leisure batteries are now fully charged. However the  240v system seems not to be working, no power to any of the sockets. The batteries appear to be holding their charge. The consumer unit has two RCB's neither of which are tripped. Interestingly the button that is pressed to test the RCB's doesnt trip them.

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9 minutes ago, embis said:

Ran the engine for an hour and the leisure batteries are now fully charged.

Oh no they’re not. Not even close. Starting at 8V you’ll need somewhere between 12 and 24 hours to fully charge them, but if they’ve been low for a number of days, which seems likely, then they may well be (probably will be) irretrievably damaged. 

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15 minutes ago, embis said:

Thank you. Ran the engine for an hour and the leisure batteries are now fully charged. However the  240v system seems not to be working, no power to any of the sockets. The batteries appear to be holding their charge. The consumer unit has two RCB's neither of which are tripped. Interestingly the button that is pressed to test the RCB's doesnt trip them.

It’s to be expected that the test button doesn’t trip. The test function requires mains power to the breaker (from the inverter or shore power), which you report not having..

What make and model of inverter is it?

Edited by nicknorman
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6 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

It’s to be expected that the test button doesn’t trip. The test function requires mains power to the breaker (from the inverter or shore power), which you report not having..

What make and model of inverter is it?

The inverter is a 700W  Sterling Pro Power S according to the OP.

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13 minutes ago, WotEver said:

Oh no they’re not. Not even close. Starting at 8V you’ll need somewhere between 12 and 24 hours to fully charge them, but if they’ve been low for a number of days, which seems likely, then they may well be (probably will be) irretrievably damaged. 

Ok maybe they are not fully charged.. but they were reading 12.8 V which i took to be fully charged. They were plugged into the shore supply from 5.00pm yesterday and charging until now. 

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The pillar could have tripped for external reasons, nothing to do with your boat electrics. Assuming that you leave it connected, with all electrics off, to keep the batteries trickle charged, there must be something that is using electricity even though you have turned everything off.

Your job is to find out what it could be :)

On my previous seagoing boat something used 0.5A with everything turned off. After about 2 years of ownership, I discovered it was the Navtex, (weather forecast receiver), which had a "soft" power off button, so wasnt really off. I fitted a switch in the power line and all was good. Turn everything off, no Amps being used.

It was also possible to charge the batteries via the inverter if the shore power was not connected - a major flaw which drained them pretty quickly.

On my current narrowboat I fitted a Sterling Pro Combi S inverter charger. If I left it charging via shorepower and the shorepower tripped, it reverted to the inverter which draws 4A, even when powering nothing - flattens the batteries if left for a few days. I never left it for any time because I discover how it works quite quickly. Sterling's answer to a query was "Tough!! but we'll be rectifying it on next years model".

So something you know nothing about will be using power when you think everything is off.

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Sorry, didn’t read the OP properly! So it’s an inverter. Presumably there is a separate charger somewhere? And there must be a means of switching between shore power (which presumably is now powering the sockets) and inverter power. How is this done?

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Switching between shoreline and inverter is done by unplugging a cable from one socket and plugging it into another. We cant get 240v power whichever source is selected...

 

..and as a footnote.. just turned the oil fueled heating on... the start up of the ebspacher drained more power from the battery so they were  reading 12.1V and now the heating is off again that charge doesnt seem be being restored. 

We have a battery charger seperate to the inverter.

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If the test button on an RCD doesn't trip it then some RCDs have a two stage trip. You need to physically turn the lever to off then physically reset it to on to switch it on. HTH

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2 hours ago, embis said:

Switching between shoreline and inverter is done by unplugging a cable from one socket and plugging it into another. We cant get 240v power whichever source is selected...

 

..and as a footnote.. just turned the oil fueled heating on... the start up of the ebspacher drained more power from the battery so they were  reading 12.1V and now the heating is off again that charge doesnt seem be being restored. 

We have a battery charger seperate to the inverter.

12.1 volts without any load on shows the battery is less than 50% charged. 

You need to keep charging it.

It may be that flattening the battery and leaving it uncharged has caused it to sulphate.

Do you have the facilty to raise the charging voltage to around 15 volts, so that it can have an equalising charge? Only do this once the battery is fully charged (circa 12.7 volts open circuit voltage taken 2 hours after the charger has been switched off).

If it doesn't improve with repeated equalising charges,  then I'm afraid you will need to buy new batteries.

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Only my opinion of course but if twer me I would get hold of a good boat leccy bod and pay him for a couple of hours on yer boat showing you what/what you havnt got in the way of functioning systems and advising you on how your set up works and check the systems out for you. He will save you more than his costs in a very short period of time.

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2 hours ago, Chewbacka said:

Have you checked the fuse in the plug that you use to select inverter or shore power?

Edited due to misreading!

Sounds like a good idea.

3 hours ago, embis said:

Switching between shoreline and inverter is done by unplugging a cable from one socket and plugging it into another. We cant get 240v power whichever source is selected...

 

..and as a footnote.. just turned the oil fueled heating on... the start up of the ebspacher drained more power from the battery so they were  reading 12.1V and now the heating is off again that charge doesnt seem be being restored. 

We have a battery charger seperate to the inverter.

Sticking with the mains issue and ignoring the battery issue (because they’re probably shagged!) I am struggling to find exactly the inverter you refer to on the internet, but does it have a 13A socket actually on the inverter? If so, unplug the lead that’s in it at the moment and plug in a lamp or some other known working thing. This will enable you to differentiate between a fault with the inverter and a fault with the installation / wiring.

Edited by nicknorman
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Thanks all.. Changed every fuse in sight... No difference. 

Unplugged the lead into the inverter and plugged in a table lamp... It Doesn't work. Does this mean there is a problem with the inverter? 

Despite being plugged into the shoreline the batteries are slowly losing their charge.

I have called out an electrician to come and look at it. It will be later in the week before I have an answer.  If we don't already need new batteries we will do by then! Battery charge is gradually dropping.. Now down to 11.9V and the only thing using power is a 12V fridge. 

 

I will let you know what the final diagnosis is after someone who knows what they are doing has looked over it. 

Everyone's help has been greatly appreciated. What a good community this is! 

Edited by embis
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2 hours ago, embis said:

Thanks all.. Changed every fuse in sight... No difference. 

Unplugged the lead into the inverter and plugged in a table lamp... It Doesn't work. Does this mean there is a problem with the inverter? 

Despite being plugged into the shoreline the batteries are slowly losing their charge.

I have called out an electrician to come and look at it. It will be later in the week before I have an answer.  If we don't already need new batteries we will do by then! Battery charge is gradually dropping.. Now down to 11.9V and the only thing using power is a 12V fridge. 

 

I will let you know what the final diagnosis is after someone who knows what they are doing has looked over it. 

Everyone's help has been greatly appreciated. What a good community this is! 

Clearly there is something significant “up” - is the charger getting mains power? If so, why isn’t it charging the batteries? (Rhetorical question!). I think you should ensure the batteries are able to deliver adequate voltage to the inverter before deciding whether it’s defunct. It seems unlikely that there are multiple fault all arising at the same time, more likely just one but what?

what happens if you plug the table lamp into the socket that should provide shore power (where you select between shore and inverter? Really, one wouldn’t expect much between the shore inlet socket and that socket. If that socket is dead when shore power is on, maybe try another shore power lead or at least check for continuity of the L, N and E connections at each end (unplugged, of course!).

Are you sure the bollard is working? Could you try a different bollard that is known to be working?

Do you have an Isolation Transformer? If so, they sometimes have a breaker inbuilt.

electrical fault finding is all about logic and often the best way is to start at the source of power (shore power) and work along the circuitry until you find there is suddenly no power.

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1 hour ago, WotEver said:

Whereabouts are you?

We are based in Thorne. 

 

19 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Clearly there is something significant “up” - is the charger getting mains power? If so, why isn’t it charging the batteries? (Rhetorical question!). I think you should ensure the batteries are able to deliver adequate voltage to the inverter before deciding whether it’s defunct. It seems unlikely that there are multiple fault all arising at the same time, more likely just one but what?

what happens if you plug the table lamp into the socket that should provide shore power (where you select between shore and inverter? Really, one wouldn’t expect much between the shore inlet socket and that socket. If that socket is dead when shore power is on, maybe try another shore power lead or at least check for continuity of the L, N and E connections at each end (unplugged, of course!).

Are you sure the bollard is working? Could you try a different bollard that is known to be working?

Do you have an Isolation Transformer? If so, they sometimes have a breaker inbuilt.

electrical fault finding is all about logic and often the best way is to start at the source of power (shore power) and work along the circuitry until you find there is suddenly no power.

The bollard is working, haven't tested the cable for continuity but it's brand new and doesn't appear damaged.  The bollard did provide enough power to  charge the batteries from 8V up to 10v overnight, I then ran the engine for an hour this morning and that took me up to 12.8 V... But since then, despite plugging back into the shoreline as soon as the engine was off the voltage has been gradually dropping. Anyway, electrician will look at it Wednesday and hopefully then we will get the answer... And a bill! 

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1 hour ago, embis said:

 

The bollard is working, haven't tested the cable for continuity but it's brand new and doesn't appear damaged.  The bollard did provide enough power to  charge the batteries from 8V up to 10v overnight, I then ran the engine for an hour this morning and that took me up to 12.8 V... But since then, despite plugging back into the shoreline as soon as the engine was off the voltage has been gradually dropping. Anyway, electrician will look at it Wednesday and hopefully then we will get the answer... And a bill! 

To charge the batteries from 8v to 10v requires very little power. 8v is incredibly entirely flat, 10v is very very flat.

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Unless I’ve missed it, we don’t actually know what charger you have, do we? If it’s a little C-Tek or similar it might only be 2A or maybe 4A charging current in which case it’ll be fighting a losing battle against empty batteries and a 12V fridge. If it’s a sensible 40A charger or similar then the problem is more fundamental, like no mains to it. 

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1 hour ago, embis said:

We are based in Thorne. 

 

The bollard is working, haven't tested the cable for continuity but it's brand new and doesn't appear damaged.  The bollard did provide enough power to  charge the batteries from 8V up to 10v overnight, I then ran the engine for an hour this morning and that took me up to 12.8 V... But since then, despite plugging back into the shoreline as soon as the engine was off the voltage has been gradually dropping. Anyway, electrician will look at it Wednesday and hopefully then we will get the answer... And a bill! 

An hour of charging is nowhere near enough to get any charge into the batteries. The 12.7v you are seeing is most likely just on the surface of the plates.

Run your engine for about 8 or 10 hours tomorrow, and see how things look at the end of that. 8 to 10 hours won't be enough to fully charge them from flat, but it will do something.  You can then see how things survive overnight.

i once had a shore power lead that I was certain was fine. Spent ages looking at other stuff then, when I opened it up, a wire was not connected.

How are you ensuring that 240v from the bollard is entering the boat? Have you got a volt meter?

 

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