Electric tripping on pontoon. Boat Bavaria 30.

Ok , thanks. I am not a electrician, only what I have picked up over the years. Still not sure how that works though, as the problem I had the immersion heater was tripping the boat RCD with the live to the immersion isolated. Only the neutral and the earth where connected and the RCD still tripped. Changed the immersion element and all has been well since feb.
 
sailinglegend420 said:
There is a big difference between an RCD/RCCB and an ELCB. Maybe your boat or the pontoon has ELCBs. These were common about 10 years ago and have now been replaced by RCD/RCCBs which only trip if there is a difference in the current flowing in the Live and Neutral wire, so if there is a difference it is going to earth somewhere.

ELCBs are different in that they measure the "voltage" between the neutral and earth and therefore "assume" there is a current flowing or "leaking" to earth.
Click to expand...

ELCBs have been explicitly disallowed in UK for many years, more like 20 than 10 I would say. I think it's inconceivable that you would find any commercial installation such as a marina with them still fitted.

As all the ones I saw worked by a tripping coil I would describe them as current operated not voltage operated.
 
Troubadour said:
ELCBs have been explicitly disallowed in UK for many years, more like 20 than 10 I would say. I think it's inconceivable that you would find any commercial installation such as a marina with them still fitted.

As all the ones I saw worked by a tripping coil I would describe them as current operated not voltage operated.
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You may be right Troubadour, but my information came from an article on a professional Electrical Engineering Portal - posted Oct 25 2011. But as you know you can't believe most of what you read on the Internet. It does also say that the ELCB measures the Neutral/Earth voltage difference and therefore "assumes" a current leakage to earth. They clearly don't work if there is a faulty or even no earth wire, so that's why RCDs are now used.

I have a permanent problem with RCDs tripping on my boat with no loads at all. This ALWAYS happens when the Live/Neutral wires are reversed - we do have a reverse phased LED that tells us. It also often trips when the Neutral/Earth voltage is too high >10 volts.

This appears to be due to our Victron MultiPlus Inverter/Charter. This device feed the shorepower through the device and adds current from the batteries when needed, so with a 6 amp shorepower breaker the boat can take 8 amps. When the load falls the charger puts amps back in the battery. So it's not surprising that any imbalance or reverse phase blows the RDC, and sometimes the whole pontoon, so we are not very popular. Our experience over 7 years in the Med is that this happens in maybe 25% of the older marinas. Even new ones have the Neutral/Earth high voltage problem because of undersized - cheaper - cabling. I've just been out of the water in Alanya (4 years old) and got shocks from the propeller shaft - 25 volts between the shaft and the ground. It took TWO hours with the engineers to prove that it was not a problem on my boat. Even with the cable unplugged from the boat we had 25 volts between N/E. I used three different cables and finally they admitted it was their shorepower pedestal!!!!!

As I said these problems can take a long time to sort.
 
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sailinglegend420 said:
You may be right Troubadour, but my information came from an article on a professional Electrical Engineering Portal - posted Oct 25 2011. But as you know you can't believe most of what you read on the Internet. It does also say that the ELCB measures the Neutral/Earth voltage difference and therefore "assumes" a current leakage to earth. They clearly don't work if there is a faulty or even no earth wire, so that's why RCDs are now used.

I have a permanent problem with RCDs tripping on my boat with no loads at all. This ALWAYS happens when the Live/Neutral wires are reversed - we do have a reverse phased LED that tells us. It also often trips when the Neutral/Earth voltage is too high >10 volts.
Click to expand...

Chicken and egg innit! Does the voltage to earth produce the current through the coil or does the leakage current through the coil produce the voltage across the coil?
If you were looking at http://electrical-engineering-portal.com/what-is-the-difference-between-mcb-mccb-elcb-and-rccb or http://electricalnotes.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/working-principle-of-elcb-and-rcb/ they are both written by the same guy and I find them both a bit confusing.

Anyway, ELCBs haven't been allowed in UK since 1981, only RCDs/RCCBs.

My experience is that different makes of RCD nominally to the same specification can be vastly different in terms of nuisance spurious tripping. Nowadays I stick to pukka brands not wholesalers own label. It does sound as though yours has a lot to put up with though!
 
I will clean contacts again and dry the condensation off the connector. What would be the best spray for this. WD40 ok?
Regards,
Lancelot
 
lancelot said:
I will clean contacts again and dry the condensation off the connector. What would be the best spray for this. WD40 ok?
Regards,
Lancelot
Click to expand...

You said earlier, "The other thing is I have disconnected the mains boat socket from the rest of the circuitry, so in effect the the socket is completely isolated from boat and yet it still trips when mains is switched on."

Can you confirm that " completely isolated" means that the neutral is also disconnected ........ If it is not it would be possible for a neutral to earth fault some where on the boat or in the equipment on board to be responsible for the RCD tripping..........Even an immersion heater element fault could be responsible!
 
VicS said:
You said earlier, "The other thing is I have disconnected the mains boat socket from the rest of the circuitry, so in effect the the socket is completely isolated from boat and yet it still trips when mains is switched on."

Can you confirm that " completely isolated" means that the neutral is also disconnected ........ If it is not it would be possible for a neutral to earth fault some where on the boat or in the equipment on board to be responsible for the RCD tripping..........Even an immersion heater element fault could be responsible!
Click to expand...
An immersion heater, REALLY
#17
 
VicS said:
You said earlier, "The other thing is I have disconnected the mains boat socket from the rest of the circuitry, so in effect the the socket is completely isolated from boat and yet it still trips when mains is switched on."

Can you confirm that " completely isolated" means that the neutral is also disconnected ........ If it is not it would be possible for a neutral to earth fault some where on the boat or in the equipment on board to be responsible for the RCD tripping..........Even an immersion heater element fault could be responsible!
Click to expand...
Hi Vic.
There is a connector just after the mains socket (about 6 inches) that is, boat side, rather than pontoon side. The pontoon trips even when that particular connector is opened (isolates live, neutral and earth from the rest of the boat). There is an earth clip on the mains boat socket which seems to connect earth to the s/s casing, however, the casing is completely isolated when connector is open.
Would something like a faulty immersion element be the cause when the mains is isolated from the boat's mains input circuit?
Regards,
Lancelot
 
lancelot said:
There is a connector just after the mains socket (about 6 inches) that is, boat side ...
Click to expand...
My advice would be to remove everything from the shore power plug to this inboard socket. Test it while complete but off the boat, and if the breaker still trips, strip it down to find the fault. In fact strip it down anyway to check it.

Remember to unplug it first, BTDTGTT-S.
 
lancelot said:
Hi Vic.
There is a connector just after the mains socket (about 6 inches) that is, boat side, rather than pontoon side. The pontoon trips even when that particular connector is opened (isolates live, neutral and earth from the rest of the boat). There is an earth clip on the mains boat socket which seems to connect earth to the s/s casing, however, the casing is completely isolated when connector is open.
Would something like a faulty immersion element be the cause when the mains is isolated from the boat's mains input circuit?
Regards,
Lancelot
Click to expand...


If the neutral is disconnected, as well as live, it eliminates the possibility of a neutral to earth fault being the cause....... Just had to ask to make sure that when you said completely isolated you really meant completely isolated, neutral as well as live.

So no a faulty immersion should not be the cause if both live and neutral are disconnected.
 
VicS said:
If the neutral is disconnected, as well as live, it eliminates the possibility of a neutral to earth fault being the cause....... Just had to ask to make sure that when you said completely isolated you really meant completely isolated, neutral as well as live.

So no a faulty immersion should not be the cause if both live and neutral are disconnected.
Click to expand...
Cheers Vic
Regards,
Lancelot
 
I bought a new Marinco mains input socket, cleaned connector and contacts, fitted a bicycle inner tube over the cables in the locker and fitted the new mains socket. Since doing all this the electric has stayed on without tripping the pontoon RCD. It has stayed on all day, hopefully, it will stay on.
Thanks everyone for the help and advice.
Fair winds,
Lancelot.
 
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