Home Made Shorepower Cords

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Ron, could you explain a bit more? We have 200A servcie at our house. I rarely use all 200A of that service. That doesn't mean I have a problem, does it?.

No. You have a 200 amp breaker as a main breaker in the electrical panel and the unprotected conductor is on the outside of the house (or underground). There is a fuse or circuit breaker protecting the power company's end of this cable.

Your house is no different than any other house except older houses may have a lower capacity service.

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

About the only fix for that is to have a 30 A breaker or fuse in the 50 to 30 adaptor.

Any conceivable situation where the current is over 30 A and less than the 50A breaker's actual trip point is the risk zone. Granted, the most likely fault is a short somewhere on the 30A cable, and the 50A breaker would trip on that before the cable overheated.

The point of proper protection is so you don't have to accept risks because you decide that they're not very likely.

Just saying. I've occasionally taken calculated risks too, but it's not something that should be assumed to be safe practice. You don't want every punter using a 50 to 30 adaptor and a 30A cord without understanding what the risk is.

I'm just a bit surprised that the commercial adapters have no overcurrent protection built in. But, an overload on the boat would trip the boat's breaker and a short in the cable or inlet socket would trip the dock breaker. The risk is pretty low.

[Sundae Driver]

Originally Posted by dohenyboy

Another thing I have noticed walking here on the dock is that nearly all the sailboats here are from the UK and they employ home made shore power cords. <snip> Or am I wrong?

Good thing you don't care about punctuation or style. "I am mostly on this forum for the jokes. And secondly, (comma inserted) to look for grammar and spelling errors." Is it on the forum or read the forum? One does not walk through doors; ones walks through doorways. Just saying!

[HappyMdRSailor]

Originally Posted by capngeo

I… er… a friend I know went to Cuba once where upon checking in at Marina Hemingway, the electrician promptly cut the male end off the cord and hardwired it into the pedestal…. thereafter, a “homemade” cord is all that was on that boat!

But do you still have the cord end???


Nothing wrong at all with home made dock cords if done and sized properly...

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Garrettw

Three phase provides triple the power (using one extra wire) over the equivalent single phase distribution...

Not.
Compared to single phase power circuits, three phase power circuits provide 1.732 (the square root of 3) times more power with the same voltage & current.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Sundae Driver

Good thing you don't care about punctuation or style. "I am mostly on this forum for the jokes. And secondly, (comma inserted) to look for grammar and spelling errors." Is it on the forum or read the forum? One does not walk through doors; ones walks through doorways. Just saying!

Uh OH..... the punctuation: Gestapo; have" arrived!

[Garrettw]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Not.
Compared to single phase power circuits, three phase power circuits provide 1.732 (the square root of 3) times more power with the same voltage & current.

The equivalent power is sqrt(3) x the line to line voltage x the line current or 3 x the line to neutral voltage x the line current.


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by capngeo

I… er… a friend I know went to Cuba once where upon checking in at Marina Hemingway, the electrician promptly cut the male end off the cord and hardwired it into the pedestal…. thereafter, a “homemade” cord is all that was on that boat!

I think I would be just a tad annoyed if some electrician chopped off the end of my power cord. Did he/she at least ask before performing the surgery?

[Sundae Driver]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Uh OH..... the punctuation: Gestapo; have" arrived!

Thank you for noticing but alas, no. I just have a personal vendetta against English majors that go out of their way to smugly critique the written words of others. When I see a chance to tee-off on them, I can't help but to chastise them sometimes. Though I think the poster's tag line was just tongue in cheek so I was just being silly. Remember, Karma is only a wench, if you are... I don't want to upset Karma...

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by skipmac

I think I would be just a tad annoyed if some electrician chopped off the end of my power cord. Did he/she at least ask before performing the surgery?

Well I would too. I guess there's not much you can do about it at that point. You're in a foreign country and a guest of the marina.

I would think if a marina wanted to hardwire the shore ends they would just wire every pedestal. Or at least supply the cords. Actually, I don't know why they would want to. That's what plugs and sockets were invented for - to make electric power portable.

[dohenyboy]

Originally Posted by Sundae Driver

Good thing you don't care about punctuation or style. "I am mostly on this forum for the jokes. And secondly, (comma inserted) to look for grammar and spelling errors." Is it on the forum or read the forum? One does not walk through doors; ones walks through doorways. Just saying!

I am sorry you cannot appreciate irony or my attempt at humor. I do not believe I have corrected the post of any poster. I am making fun of hypercorrectness.

[senormechanico]

[QUOTE= One does not walk through doors; ones walks through doorways. Just saying![/QUOTE]



This guy did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFeB...-ts=1422579428

[Sundae Driver]

Originally Posted by dohenyboy

I am sorry you cannot appreciate irony or my attempt at humor. I do not believe I have corrected the post of any poster. I am making fun of hypercorrectness.

No sir, you have mistaken my intent. I got your sense of humor was adding to it (rather poorly one suspects). I found it to be hilarious that a statement about grammar and spelling had a punctuation error. I mean you no harm or meant you any disrespect. Apologies if I have offended. Truly...

Sundae,

[Sundae Driver]

Originally Posted by senormechanico

This guy did.

Wow! Just wow...

[thinwater]

There are some smart people on this thread and some good responses, but...

... would someone explain to me why people without a 10th grade understanding of electricity would post opinions? Without any knowledge of resistance, heating, NEC, or ohms law? It's plain dangerous. We worry about fires; I saw a guy get completely toasted by unfused 460/3 because he tried something he didn't understand. He lived, but his hand was melted to a pair of pliers.

I refuse to post on diesel engines, because I don't run them. It's kind of like that.