Shore power connection problem

[Bill Root]

The 50A/125V shore power receptacle on my boat will not accept the plug on my 50Amp 240/125V shore power cord. One of the prongs on the receptacle is too wide to fit in any of the slots on the plug. How can this be? I discovered this when I docked at Chuck Gorgen's home today. Chuck has 30A on his dock. I have two 50A/240V and one 50A125V receptacle on each side of the boat. I connected a 30A/50A pigtail to his outlet and my cord, then plugged my cord into the 50A/240V receptacle. There was no power to the AC panel, so that's when I tried moving the cord to the 50A/125V receptacle and discovered it wouldn't fit. This makes no sense to me. Hopefully someone on the forum can explain. Thanks.

 

[jim rosenthal]

You might post some photos when you get home, but it sounds like the problem you have might be the fact that 50A/120 is not the same connector as 50A/240......if I understand you right.

 

[Pascal]

125/250-50 and 125-50 use different plugs and inlets/outlets because they re not compatible...

 

[Boatsb]

No only are they not compatible but they are not somethig that a simple adapter can make work.

If the 240 V inlet is not working is it because there is no power to it? Test the cord for 240V power.

 

[Trojan]

Consider yourself lucky BILL. I plugged my 50 amp 125V to 30 amp Y adapter into what I though was a 50 amp 125 and it turned out to be a 50 amp 240 volt ac receiver. How or why the 50A 125v plug fit into a 240 amp socket I will never know.The marina was not concerned. Lucky all I lost was a lot of fuses. In looking at the two plugs the OLD 50A 125 plug will fit into the 50 amp 240v receiver. The 50A 240v male plug will not fit into the 50A 125 V socket. Unless the socket was wired wrong? Or the socket was wrong. Though the marina wiring was all new. They insured me that there plugs were all correctly wired. So I stopped using that Y. I should look at the Y again just for the heck of it. Needless to say it scared the heck out of me. We talked about this 3 or 4 years ago. I wrote it off as if it was my old Y. I don't think you can do that with the new Ys.

BILL

 

[Canuck Dennis]

anyone have a source for the following adapter....50 amp male 240 V to 100 amp female by 100 amp male ..?? I know it sounds radical, but for my permanent shore power here in the PNW, I want to change the dock connection to 100 amp with the 50 amp main shore panel still remaining.. reason ??
The 50 amp 240 male plugs are really minimal on the pin size and the 100 a are real good stuff...

 

[GJH]

I'm pretty sure Charles makes one for about 500 bucks. You could contact them and be sure it will do what you want.

http://www.charlesindustries.com/main/tech_support_marine.htm

http://www.morningbite.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MBC-26129

 

[fissioneng]

125/250-50 and 125-50 use different plugs and inlets/outlets because they re not compatible...

Yes, you just need to buy the adaptor. The boat next to mine has one and it works fine.

I think it is a Hubbell 61CM72.

 

[Bill Root]

There are 120V coming through the cord. I tried using a 30A cord from the dock to a 30A/50A pigtail connected to the 50A/240V receptacle on the boat. Again, power to the boat but not to the AC panel in the boat. Because the 50A/125V receptacle has a different plug configuration from the 50A/240V receptacle, it's beginning to sound like the only way to get power on the boat if the dock has only 30A/120V is to buy a separate 50A/125V cord set to attach to the 50A/125V receptacle on the boat, and use the 50A/30A pigtail to connect to the dock. Just what I need...another cord sedt to carry.

Thanks for all the great advice. I guess I'm lucky I didn't have a bigger problem.