dead batteries while plugged into shore power?

[jobofly]

so i finally hook my boat to shore power and havent been back to it for a couple of weeks and now my batteries are dead. on the shore power control panel if i hit the test switch the reversed polarity light lights up......what does that mean?

 

[Gofirstclass]

I'd suggest you check your breakers. On my boat I have to leave a 12VDC Accessory switch turned on to get the battery chargers to keep things charged up.

 

[jobofly]

yea i had all of the breakers turned on, why would it say reversed polarity when i hit the test switch?

 

[src]

Find out if they did any electrical work on the dock/pedestal. Could be that your neighbor had a problem, or a breaker blew, and they screwed up your wiring when they "fixed" it. You never know.

 

[jobofly]

Find out if they did any electrical work on the dock/pedestal. Could be that your neighbor had a problem, or a breaker blew, and they screwed up your wiring when they "fixed" it. You never know.

i tried 3 other shore power outlets and they all said the same thing. when i hit the test switch the reverse polarity lit up. the meter on the power panel in the cabin shows 110 volts when its plugged. it seems that power is hitting the panel but not anywhere else.

 

[jobofly]

ok so i read in the owners manual that if there was a reverse polarity issue then the light would light by itself. so the fact that it does not light when plugged in means that the polarity is fine. are there any fuses behind the power panel in the boat?

 

[Chris Nowell]

In our 260 DA the charger was plugged in to a 120v outlet in the engine compartment that had to have the breaker in the panel turned on. The breaker was labeled as "plugs" though, and not "charger" as one might think.

 

[jobofly]

I have 3 breakers, outlets fridge/stove and converter. I'm assuming that the converter is to charge the batteries?

 

[magstang1]

Does your charger show that it is actually charging?

Or did it cook your batteries while you were away and now they are dead?

I had a charger boil and kill my batteries once.

 

[jobofly]

I don't think it killed my batteries, nothing will work when plugged into shore power, the outlets don't work and the fridge doesn't work. I have those breakers on but still nothing.

 

[magstang1]

On my boat there is a breaker right next to where the shore power cord plugs into the boat as well.

 

[Chris Nowell]

Maybe the "main" is shut off? Just a thought. You can try popping the panel cover off and metering the feed from the dock to see where it disappears. (That's if you're comfortable working around live circuits)

 

[jobofly]

I flip the main on, the meter on the panel is showing the proper amount of power it's just not getting to anything that its suppose to power, I'm going to pull the panel and make sure all of the wires look ok

 

[chpsk8]

Do you have a voltage tester? If not, buy one today. Looking at the panel won't tell you anything, you will need to start poking around with a tester starting where the power comes into the panel and moving down the breakers. Your main breaker could be bad, but I'm guessing it's something easy and obvious.

 

[GrandMaster]

What was left on that ran your batteeries down in the 1st place?

How many batteries do you have and are they all on the same battery switch and all dead?

If the batteries are good they would just not die on their own