Dock Stanchion GFCI breakers and your boat

I am hoping these were from the auto bar, but I need to trace the neutral to find the hot and ground. But no it's not easy at all to get to where the auto bar wires are. There exactly where the bar is and where the wires disappear behind it. Coming in from the other side behind the steps is where all of the wires come in to the panel, but there is about two feet of the bar that stops it from being accessible. Not to mention it is all bundled and wrapped in wire harness covering and wire tied.
Have you accounted for every black wire that lands on the breakers?
There had to have been a black wire that accompanied the white one.
 
Have you accounted for every black wire that lands on the breakers?
There had to have been a black wire that accompanied the white one.

Exactly, and no I haven't dug into tracking this down. After five hours of finding this I felt good about the win and need to regroup and now figure this wire out. I need to count the neutrals, grounds and hot's leaving out larger connection cables. But to your point, I can live with this for now. Just knowing the boat and dock are safe is a relief.
 
.. But to your point, I can live with this for now. ...

@ttmott Tom, I could not let this go, the OCD side of me could just not let it go. So I took an extended lunch today on the boat and now I am in the process of removing the bullet from my foot that I shot myself with.

As it turns out it was the cooktop that I replaced this past winter. The junction box for the original cooktop is mounted on the back of the cabinet that the cooktop is mounted in and could not be accessed. So I repurposed the existing wire from the old cooktop and mounted a new box where it is accessible. In doing so the old cook top had a black cloth wrapped wire and a white cloth wrapped wire and a regular white wire, no green anywhere to be found. So I said ok, use the two cloth wrapped for power and the other white for the ground. Makes sense right?, not so much as it turns out. So I just swapped those wires and everything is as it should be, except for the inside of the boat, which is another story.

Man I feel better now. I am not the guy how can have something not right on my boat, causes me to loose sleep and I need to fix it. Just like things with the house, that can't be broken either. ...
 
@ttmott Tom, I could not let this go, the OCD side of me could just not let it go. So I took an extended lunch today on the boat and now I am in the process of removing the bullet from my foot that I shot myself with.

As it turns out it was the cooktop that I replaced this past winter. The junction box for the original cooktop is mounted on the back of the cabinet that the cooktop is mounted in and could not be accessed. So I repurposed the existing wire from the old cooktop and mounted a new box where it is accessible. In doing so the old cook top had a black cloth wrapped wire and a white cloth wrapped wire and a regular white wire, no green anywhere to be found. So I said ok, use the two cloth wrapped for power and the other white for the ground. Makes sense right?, not so much as it turns out. So I just swapped those wires and everything is as it should be, except for the inside of the boat, which is another story.

Man I feel better now. I am not the guy how can have something not right on my boat, causes me to loose sleep and I need to fix it. Just like things with the house, that can't be broken either. ...
I'm a bit confused. That white wire your pulled from the common buss bar is?
The cooktop probably has nomex wrapped silicone insulated wires for heat protection - those are the "cloth covered" black and white wires? And, the cooktop has a standard vinyl insulated white wire also?
There are two Kenyon (I think you said Kenyon) voltages; for the 208-240 volt there are a red wire, black wire, and green ground all in a metallic flex conduit. The 120 Volt has three wires Black Hot, White neutral, and Green ground again all in a metallic conduit. That flex conduit should terminate in a metallic box where the house wiring can route and terminate.
 
I'm a bit confused. That white wire your pulled from the common buss bar is?
The cooktop probably has nomex wrapped silicone insulated wires for heat protection - those are the "cloth covered" black and white wires? And, the cooktop has a standard vinyl insulated white wire also?
There are two Kenyon (I think you said Kenyon) voltages; for the 208-240 volt there are a red wire, black wire, and green ground all in a metallic flex conduit. The 120 Volt has three wires Black Hot, White neutral, and Green ground again all in a metallic conduit. That flex conduit should terminate in a metallic box where the house wiring can route and terminate.

The cooktop was the only wire run not replaced when I replaced the galley wires, because I could not get too the the metal box on the back of the cabinet. That wire is 10/3 marine wire and looks like new and was/is very flexible. The original cooktop had the wrapped wires in nylon cloth, one black and one white, there was a second white that was not wrapped. This was encased in 3/4" bendex metal casing.

I cut the wires and bendex from the original cooktop and was left with 2' of very usable wire and bendex. The original cooktop was 110v and so is the new Kenyon. The Kenyon also has bendex wiring as well so I installed a new metal box with appropriate hardware and everything worked perfectly. I just guessed wrong on the neutral wire, never thought to ohm out the wires because two were wrapped in nylon and that just made sense to me and everything worked so I didn't look back.

Crazy that the white cloth covered wire was ground, possibly wired wrong from the factory? Either way I ohmed everything out this time and now it is all good. I just need to put the boat back together.
 
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Just to add to this a bit. I was pretty happy with 0 mA leakage current, but I still had to check the GFCI circuit issue I had. I setup a hot tub 50A GFCI box with an old 50A cord, I really wanted to make sure this was fixed. And well It worked just fine. Now I can go plug in pretty much anywhere and know I'm fine.
 
Electrical issues suck...I spent countless hours sorting out the AC issue to finally track down a set of incorrectly wired neutrals on the pump controls board.
 
@ttmott Tom, I have a question regarding twin 30 amp coming into a boat and the need for an isolation transformer. I am confused a bit as I have seen different ways of handling this. It looks to me like you need two transformers when there is dual 30a power coming into the boat. Is that correct?

I have a single 50 amp source coming into my boat and completely understand how that needs to be wired with an isolation transformer. The dual 30's question is to further my understanding on this subject and you seem to be an expert at understanding all of this. Thanks as always for your comments.
 
@ttmott Tom, I have a question regarding twin 30 amp coming into a boat and the need for an isolation transformer. I am confused a bit as I have seen different ways of handling this. It looks to me like you need two transformers when there is dual 30a power coming into the boat. Is that correct?

I have a single 50 amp source coming into my boat and completely understand how that needs to be wired with an isolation transformer. The dual 30's question is to further my understanding on this subject and you seem to be an expert at understanding all of this. Thanks as always for your comments.
It depends - if the twin 30 amp sources are out of phase then the two Hot legs will measure 240 volts across them. In this case a single isolation transformer is appropriate. If they are in phase then 0 volts will be measured and the transformer will not work.
Now if you wanted to isolate the 120 volt feeds independently and eliminate the galvanic isolators, then two independent 120 volt isolation transformers would be appropriate. I can do a sketch for you if you desire.
 
It depends - if the twin 30 amp sources are out of phase then the two Hot legs will measure 240 volts across them. In this case a single isolation transformer is appropriate. If they are in phase then 0 volts will be measured and the transformer will not work.
Now if you wanted to isolate the 120 volt feeds independently and eliminate the galvanic isolators, then two independent 120 volt isolation transformers would be appropriate. I can do a sketch for you if you desire.

Thanks Tom, that is what I was thinking. The best way to ensure a boat with two 30 amp shore cables would be to use two isolation transformers which would guarantee proper operation due to possible phase variances from dock to dock.
 
... Now if you wanted to isolate the 120 volt feeds independently and eliminate the galvanic isolators, then two independent 120 volt isolation transformers would be appropriate. I can do a sketch for you if you desire.

In this case would the neutrals be tied together on the boat side of things? I would think they must be.
 
In this case would the neutrals be tied together on the boat side of things? I would think they must be.
Absolutely, Isolation transformers are considered power sources consequently the neutral has to be bonded to the ground on the secondary side. If your boat has things that run on 220 VAC then it may get a bit dicey using two 120 volt isolation transformers. I have to think about it, but again the shore power must be out of phase consequently, the secondary windings on the isolation transformers would also be out of phase between the two. So, in a 120 V application there are no taps on the secondary side, just two ends of the winding. One end Hot and one end would be neutral. So, my thinking is you will still have 220 volts between the two hot legs of the transformers and still both neutrals tie to ground. I think this would work. Obviously the shorepower ground must be isolated to the transformer iron core and no continuity to the boat's grounding. So, it appears that two 4KVA 120VAC isolation xfmr's will do for a 30 amp dock circuit. Obviously, you will need to have the appropriate circuit protections on the secondary side for both voltages.
 
Absolutely, Isolation transformers are considered power sources consequently the neutral has to be bonded to the ground on the secondary side. If your boat has things that run on 220 VAC then it may get a bit dicey using two 120 volt isolation transformers. I have to think about it, but again the shore power must be out of phase consequently, the secondary windings on the isolation transformers would also be out of phase between the two. So, in a 120 V application there are no taps on the secondary side, just two ends of the winding. One end Hot and one end would be neutral. So, my thinking is you will still have 220 volts between the two hot legs of the transformers and still both neutrals tie to ground. I think this would work. Obviously the shorepower ground must be isolated to the transformer iron core and no continuity to the boat's grounding. So, it appears that two 4KVA 120VAC isolation xfmr's will do for a 30 amp dock circuit. Obviously, you will need to have the appropriate circuit protections on the secondary side for both voltages.

My dock neighbor is having issues with breakers on the dock and ultimately we fixed the leakage, but he wants to go the rest of the way with isolation transformers. He has the two 30a cords powering his boat and I have a single 50a. So in thinking this out if he uses two transformers and ties the neutrals together and to the boat's bonding then the panels should be fine and need no change other then removing the zinc saver. The two neutrals currently in place could be tied together at the transformer along with the ground(s). This would keep in line with the ABYC of tying the neutral and ground together at the power source.
 

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