Weird Electrical Behavior - No Shore Power 1

[dfogal]

Hi All:

I had a quick chat with Kenny on this yesterday - it's getting a bit late to follow up in person today. Here's what's happening.

1). 2015 R-29S.
2). The batteries were recently flattened by mistake. We were able to charge them up. I ensured that the ACRs were reset by following the instructions (turning on the parallel switch when the motor was running). We had the right voltage drops so the ACRs are allowing all the batteries to charge. Yay

Now the weird stuff.

1). Shore power 1 and shore power 2 are plugged in. The rotary dial is turned to Shore and I see the green LED for 1 and 2 illuminated.
2). ELCI 1 (Main AC 1) is turned on and showing a green LED under AC Main 1
3). ELCI 2 (Main AC 2) is turned on and showing a green LED under AC Main 2
4). Shore Power 2 is working great. AC works. Anyone know what the accessory is on Shore Power 2 breaker 4?
4). The voltmeter is showing 125V for AC Bus 2 and ZERO for AC BUS 1
5). The Promariner TruePower Combi 2500 Inverter is turned to shore power / charger. The fuse is intact and the rotary switch (located high up in port-side lazarette) is turned to On. There are no lights, hums, buzzes or beeps on the Inverter. Could it be cooked? I tried to use the reset procedure (unplug everything, turn everything off, plug the boat in, turn on the ELCI, turn on the inverter, hit the reset if needed). No change. No beeps, lights, buzzes or hums.
6). In spite of AC BUS 1 showing zero volts on the volt meter - several of the breakers associated with accessory, cooktop, ice maker and water heater are all showing green.
7). The breakers associated with microwave, galley outlets, fwd outlets and salon outlets are all showing no green LED. that's the entire left hand panel.

We called Kenny - he suggested starting with the basics. Check the shore power cable (we put in my new one and checked it with a circuit tester - A OK) and pull the Blue Sea AC panel out (four screws and some cover plates - no big deal) and give it a look. We did that - all the connections are still made, there is no visible charring, no excess heat and no smell of burning anything.

All the DC stuff works - just the AC is being weird. Does all this make sense? Any diagnostic insight?

What would be super helpful would be an AC Circuit diagram. How is it brought into the boat (we traced it from the plugs to the ELCI breaker) - but got confused after that. The power is not taken directly across the AC panel - but seems to dive back into the cabinets. How is the inverter / charger integrated?

Any suggestions / diagnostic thoughts would be super welcome. The good news is - we took the boat on our inaugural cruise today - maybe 20 miles total - but it was a lot of fun! Now if I can get shore power to work...

Thanks all!

 

[BB marine]

download/file.php?id=731

The left panel as you can see from the diagram is for the inverter circuit. The 120V shore power must go through the inverter then to the panel. There is a transfer switch that isolates the inverter from shore power circuit. When you plug in for shore power the transfer switch allows current through and the charger turns on. The panel is powered from shore power. When the shore power is absent then the transfor switch changed position and isolates the shore power circuit and only the left panel has power from the inverter. My guess is the transfer switch is not working in the inverter. If you look at the diagram you will see the shore power goes through the inverter to power the panel. When there is not shore power the switch open and now the inverter supplies power to that panel but doesn't back feed to shore power #1 panel. I would check the connections at the inverter for shore power in and shore power out with a VOA meter. At the same time if you have the panel open I highly recommend checking every connection for tightness and corrosion. This will not fix your issue now but it may fix an issue down the road. I found several loose in my panel and two burned because they were loose. Good luck in your troubleshooting.

 

[Trisailor]

It was the transfer switch function that failed on my Promariner. As Brian B states, it will stop AC voltage from going to the panel and stop the battery charger from working. The transfer switch is on an internal circuit board. I had similar weird electrical indications on my R27 when it happened. I got some troubleshooting instructions from the promariner web site That basically suggest to do as Brian suggested.

 

[dfogal]

Thanks all - we are now thinking that it's the actual inverter / charger unit. We took it apart and found one of the big capacitors was charred. It's on the bench this week (with someone who knows how to work on it) but may have to be replaced.

Perhaps the big cap bounced too much when the boat was shipped from San Diego to near Detroit.

More to come - that diagram really nailed it Brian - thanks.

 

[HawaiianFish]

Aloha, just wanted to thank you guys for this great post, I had the EXACT issue. I was able to restart my inverter and that solved the trick.

 

[phishkit]

I messaged dfogal directly but figured I would share my current issue. It is exactly as described in this original post. My inverter had the dreaded R2.0 message on the display. I replaced with a new unit but same model. My far left panel still doesn't have power and my batteries are not charging from the inverter while on shore power. I see 55 amps at the inverter and it is flashing amber but never switching to a state of charging.

I have looked at diagrams as well as read many posts on the forums. Is there a procedure I need to follow to get everything back to a normal state? ACR's? a breaker I am not aware of hidden away somewhere?

The story of what happened that lead to the problem was that I was on generator with my air conditioning running. Generator overheated and shutoff, so I switched the rotary back to off. When I got back to my slip and plugged in to shore power I thought everything was fine until I noticed my accessories weren't working and my first 120v meter wasn't working.

 

[phishkit]

I am having this same problem as the original post. I replaced my inverter with a new unit but same model. I didn't do anything except for power everything back up and connect shorepower. My house batteries do not charge from the inverter and I get no power to the far left panel. The inverter display works and toggles through modes just fine but the amber light flashes indicating it hasn't switched over the charge mode.

Is there a procedure I need to follow to get things back to normal? Is there a breaker/fuse somewhere I am missing? It is strange that the panel wont light up at all even on shore power. The analog gauge that shows power input from shore (1 and 2) shows 0 for 1 and 120v for 2. Input for the inverter shows both 120v and 55 total amps.