Shore Power Fairline S65 - quick question

[Hooligan]

Hi. Does anyone know if on the Squadron S65 one can choose between shore cable one or two? I know that they operate one above the other ie the power is drawn from one cable and then when fully drawn it draws from the second cable. But if i want to use cable two rather than cable one, is this ok or is the system set up that you have to have cable one - the upper one plugged in first. Thanks.

 

[kashurst]

The usual way the two connections are organised is one is for the aircon system, the other does everything else.
No idea which is which on your boat, but easy to find out. Unplug one (with everything off first) and see what no longer works.

 

[Portofino]

Why do FL do this , twin shore power leads .
There is a Ph 50 opposite me ,the Y piece looks like a potential water ingress problem .It’s often sat horizontally on the pontoon .
He‘s only got one socket on the jetty service box like everyone else .

All the other boats a mixed bag all have the 1 .

Why ?


You can’t see it but his Y is on the floor .

Hate to turn up and find it’s tripped and the batteries are F******** ?? ( that’s flat mods )

 

[Hooligan]

It’s a poor design from Fairline. Basically the top line drags all power up to 63A. Then if more needed it switches to bottom lines. Problem is that if there is only 32 A onshore the top line seeks 63A so the second line is useless. Ergo you either have air con or chargers on inside. I was wondering whether you could plug either too or bottom line in. But apparently not. It always seeks too line. Not a great design

 

[kashurst]

It’s a poor design from Fairline. Basically the top line drags all power up to 63A. Then if more needed it switches to bottom lines. Problem is that if there is only 32 A onshore the top line seeks 63A so the second line is useless. Ergo you either have air con or chargers on inside. I was wondering whether you could plug either too or bottom line in. But apparently not. It always seeks too line. Not a great design

That is very annoying. I think I would get a boat electrician to rewire it and get rid of the current sensing switch over nonsense.

 

[jrudge]

No. You must feed line 1 first.

I spoke with the designer of the system when I had mine.

it is clever to a point but it should allow the current on line 1 before pulling from line 2 to be set.

The background I suspect is that the pilot system Fairline had on the prior generation did this and more but was pig unreliable. I suspect they just wanted it simple.

it uses a large isolation transformer that also does the merging of the lines so modifying it will be tricky.

 

[Portofino]

So on a 32 A berth ( visitor ) you have to choose Aircon or main charger ?
On a single 64 A ( about the ave size for this 65 ftr boat) it’s diverts it to the charger and might not supply the Aircon unless you dedicate the 2nd line using a Y piece to the single dock socket?

What happens in some summer bombed out Marina middle of August when evey sods on his / her boat , does the second Aircon line start to get squeezed out and the AC stops ?

 

[jrudge]

The boat handles the loading. You cannot do anything. If you put power to line 2 it ignores it unless line 1 is drawing 64 amps.

amp 65 and above comes from line 2.

The box of tricks merges it into one in phase supply for the boat. Ac and domestic are not separate.

not how I would design it - I just happen to know exactly how it works

 

[Portofino]

Gotcha ^

 

[MapisM]

not how I would design it - I just happen to know exactly how it works

Neither would I. In fact, it even makes me wonder why they bothered fitting a second line at all.
I mean, how many times did you need more than 64A, with a 65 footer?
I guess you must try pretty hard, running on top of airco also the oven, cooktop, boiler, dishwasher, and God knows what else - all in parallel...?!?

 

[kashurst]

Bit of a bugger if you rock up somewhere and they only have 32 amp jobbies and they are on different phases on the same post!!!! Med Marina wiring can be "interesting" sometimes. I think I would remove said gizmo and re wire the incoming and air con feeds.

 

[Portofino]

The FL ones I see a Ph 50 and further down a ph 48 ? Use a Y and connect both into there own one socket * .

So at post # 8 JRudge , just to be clear ……did you mean plug “2” into some one else socket , as each station usually has one socket per boat berth ??


* 32 A in theses examples as 50 s , but the principle applies to boats sized for bigger 64 A etc .

 

[jrudge]

The boat assumes you have 2 64 amp supplies. That of course in the real world is rather suspect.

my 58 has domestic and aircon as separate input.

As I said not a great design but as I could not really figure it out I called the bloke who designed it to have a chat.

in. Practice I caused little real issue as you could run one air con Pack and charger on a 32a supply that used in practice to supply some 40amps.
More that they stick on the generator for 30 mins whilst you cooked etc. The gen is huge

 

[Hooligan]

The boat assumes you have 2 64 amp supplies. That of course in the real world is rather suspect.

my 58 has domestic and aircon as separate input.

As I said not a great design but as I could not really figure it out I called the bloke who designed it to have a chat.

in. Practice I caused little real issue as you could run one air con Pack and charger on a 32a supply that used in practice to supply some 40amps.
More that they stick on the generator for 30 mins whilst you cooked etc. The gen is huge

It is a stupid design for what one faces in reality. In essence as a Porto said you often end up in places where there is only 32A. This could be town quays or visitor berths in marinas. Then you need to regulate how much A you draw. That means often choosing between battery charge and aircon. However even then you often find that the aircon draws up to 40A in bursts which can trip the shore switch and in my case last week the whole dock. Ultimately you end up using the generator. The 58 design was far better. Interestingly I discovered that the the 64A line actually only has three wires. Most 64A boats in Europe I believe have 3 live wires ie 5 in total. I believe that this actually regulates between systems ie one wore for aircon or one for charge etc. Again seems more sensible to me