A/C panel appears dead

D

DreadKnot

Active member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
27
Fluid Motion Model
C-28
Hull Identification Number
WN5090SB
Vessel Name
DreadKnot
Need some advice for R27. Two hours out and moored at an island in south sound. Boat sat for about three hours while we dug geoducks. Turned A/C panel on to use hot water, but it went off on its own after about a minute. Can't get panel to respond. D/C panel works fine. Could this be inverter fuse? I'm super new at this, any advice would be appreciated.
 
Make sure all the breakers for the big loads like stove, hot water heater, etc are OFF. Without being plugged in to shore power your invertor can't handle more than the load generated by the microwave or a small power tool, a few cell phone chargers and lights, that kind of thing. You will only be able to heat your water with the engine running using the heat exchanger, but it will stay hot after you shutdown for many hours so still available for a couple of gallons of hot water for a quick shower or doing the dishes. You cannot heat water using the invertor to power the electric element, or any other electric heater for that matter. Your batteries, and/or the invertor will be far too overloaded to last even if the breakers or other safety systems don't step in to stop you from draining/destroying them.
 
You cannot use the hot water heater with the inverter. You probably overloaded the inverter. Not knowing which inverter you have will inhibit what to do next. There may be a reset button on the inverter somewhere or there may be an internal fuse. And by the way, after 3 hours you should have plenty of hot water to do typical chores without turning the heater on. I have gone overnight and still have good hot water in the morning.
 
The water heater is a battery killer. I constantly forget to shut the breaker off and on the R29 the inverter will handle the load but the batteries will drain in no time.
 
Thank you. I have the truepower 1500. The manual says it is protected by gfci and I think I located it at the right end of the unit but can't get the button to reset. There is a white electrical cable plugged in that looks like the water heater. I had a senior moment and flashed back to my rv days, yes we had lots of water and kicking myself for doing this. Kenny told me not to. I'm blocking that switch from now on, it is too close to the other ones I can flip. Now I'm getting ready to hook back up to shore power, but am worried I blew the unit.
 
You should be able to get the ground fault to reset. Sometimes it won't reset unless power is going to it. So once you are on shore power try it again. If it won't, there could be a fault or the ground fault could be faulty. They do go sometimes. It could be a coincidence that it happened at the same time you overloaded the circuit.
 
usually there is a master circuit breaker panel controlling shore power and 120v to house appliances, and also an on/off switch on the inverter itself. I'd flip all switches to off. then turn the inverter back on and see if you have power to the low watt devices like 120v outlets or microwave. i'd be surprised if trying to run too high a wattage fried the inverter; there is overload protection on all of the modern devices nowadays..

let us know what happens.. by the way this is a good sample electrics question for the US Power Squadron Marine Electric and Electronics course I am teaching next month. (on the internet, if you want to take it by computer from anywhere in the world... PM me for details.) :roll:
 
This is the resolution for our inverter problem. Yeah! Background: Instead of using the hot water tank only on shore power, I hit the switch while the inverter was running. The remote display fluctuated terribly, then there was a high pitched squeal, and then the A/C system died. We didn't have any other switches on, but that doesn't matter. We had blown the six internal fuses within the inverter unit itself. The 175 amp fuse in the battery compartment was not blown (the one on the sidewall within the battery compartment itself and not within the battery switch hold). The test and reset buttons would not respond either, so I figured that either we blew the GFCI or the whole unit.
The inverter is attached to the sidewalls with two square shaft screws on top and it slips into the two screws on the bottom. There is also an L-plate under the inverter, but don't mess with it (it looks like it is part of the set up, but it isn't [on the 27']). We had to entirely remove the unit and remove the battery terminal end (blue panel) of the inverter to take off the back panel of the inverter. The instructions do not run you through this because it says a technician has to do this work (not sure why because it was fairly easy after Kenny walked me through it). There are 6 of those 35 amp fuses, and no one sells them anywhere in Olympia. Upon checking, there aren't even 35 amp fuses made by most of the manufacturers apparently (two marine stores and Cabelas here and no one carries them). Lessons learned: no hot water unless shore power, get a lot of spare 35 amp fuses, oh and check your hot water first because apparently we already had enough and I was overdoing it. As you all know, the engine heats the water hot enough to last for days. Hopefully, this saves the newbies a lot of work and agony. Now we have hot water for whale watching and crabbing! Happy tug owners once again!
 
sorry, didn't actually post the reply last month...yes, two blade fuses like vehicles.
 
DreadKnot:
We're please you are all fixed and back in action. I'm sorry for the hassle you went through but a good lesson for all of us. Enjoyed meeting you two in Olympia.
Charlie's Jewel
 
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