Shore power to the boat

[Hat43]

My boat is 50 Amp service that I have hooked up to two (2) 30 AMP plugs with a Y adapter. However, I am only pulling off of one line because when ever I exceed 30 AMP the one circuit breaker, same one all the time, shuts off. Is there any device I can purchase that will take that 30 AMP and boost it to 50 AMPs?

 

[Pascal]

if you are connecting to a 30amp outlet, that's your limit and if you exceed it the breaker protecting the outlet (dockside) will trip. nothing you can do except of course conencting to a 50amp outlet.

it also depends on how your panel is split. if you have like many your house circuits on one leg, and the AC on the other one, the amp limit is obviously per leg. if you run more than 2 ACs, chances are the AC leg will trip, no matter how much you're using on the house leg. or if you run a lot of lights, water heater, microwave, fridge, etc... then you're going to trip that side even with no AC runing on the other leg.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

When you use a 50a 240v cord you can draw 50a of 120v on each leg. But if you use one of those splitters, you have only 30a of 120v per leg. This is your limit. As Pascal stated, you will have to try to balance the loads on each leg. I don't know how your panels are set up, but sometimes you have to watch the ammeters as you add loads to determine which item is pulling from which leg. Then you can decide what you will be able to run simultaneously.

 

[Capt K]

You cannot use a common "y" adaptor. You have to use a "smart adaptor" such as the ones sold by Marinco or Hubbel. They have a breaker in them and supply 50a 240v as long as the two 30's are on different phase supplies.

I use one all the time at one marina that only has 30a power but changed the pedestal so the plugs were on diffenent phase supplies.

No problem with this setup, but it won't work, most of the time, with a simpe "y".

K

 

[Boss Lady]

If the marina wiring is not setup where the two 30 amp outlets are on different phase legs the y cable will not work. If the pedestal is wired to supply two boats at 30 amps each, each recepticle should be wired to seperate phase legs. A lot of marinas are improperly wired and will not support using the y cable setup. You should pay special attention to this when hooking up power. We just spent a fortune rewiring our docks to correct some of these problems created by previous owners. You can use a multi-meter to jump across the two 30 amp circuits and test to see if you can get 240 volts, if you do then the two circuits are on different legs, if you only get 120 volts then they are on the same leg and your y cable will not work.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

You cannot use a common "y" adaptor. You have to use a "smart adaptor" such as the ones sold by Marinco or Hubbel. They have a breaker in them and supply 50a 240v as long as the two 30's are on different phase supplies.

I use one all the time at one marina that only has 30a power but changed the pedestal so the plugs were on diffenent phase supplies.

No problem with this setup, but it won't work, most of the time, with a simpe "y".

K

The smart adapter does not make 50a 240v, it only gives you 30a 240v.

 

[Pascal]

You cannot use a common "y" adaptor. You have to use a "smart adaptor" such as the ones sold by Marinco or Hubbel. They have a breaker in them and supply 50a 240v as long as the two 30's are on different phase supplies.

I use one all the time at one marina that only has 30a power but changed the pedestal so the plugs were on diffenent phase supplies.

No problem with this setup, but it won't work, most of the time, with a simpe "y".

K

that will allow you to connect a 240/50 boat with a 240/50 cable to a slip where only 120/30s are available. that's not his issue, he has the capability of using 30amps cables, like most hatts i guess, mine has both 240/50 and pairs of 120/30 inlets.

And the smart Y will still limit you to 30 amps because that's all you can pull out of the 30amp outlets...

 

[Angela]

Have you tried asking the marina to just make your pedestal 50 amp?

Everytime I've been in a 30 amp slip, I just tell the dockmaster I need 50 amp and they come out and change it in just a few minutes. I don't know the technical side of this question/solution, but I have always been able to fix that problem with a phone call and then plug in my 50 amp cord followed by firing up all 7 air conditioning units! Heck, even when they moved me to my spot for our only tropical storm last year, the ran 50 amp out to me in no time.