Dual shore power plugs 32xx-gctid378583

[Bodie]

Most boats I notice with 30A shore power have a single plug into the boat's system. Mine has 2, and there are 2 main breakers on the AC panel. Why would that be? It seems to me that 30A at the shore outlet = 30A at the AC panel, what is the purpose of dividing the supply into 2 circuits?

[Guest]

I would think it would be for the AC... I have 1 30 amp on my boat and going to add #2, 30 amp just for the AC....

Just my thinking on it.....

BUCKANEER

:arr

[Uncle_Bob]

Factory A/C had two inputs.

[Guest]

It means that you could have 60 amps to the boat...mainly necessary when the boat is prewired for A/C.

I have similar on my 3587 and have 2x30 amp cords to the boat.

[WhiteRockMike]

Just to avoid possible confusion - the AC or A/C referred to in the responses is Air Conditioning, as opposed to the AC for Alternating Current in the original post

[jmcannonball]

On my 38, one input supplies power to the aft part of the boat and the other input supplies power to the fore part of the boat. I use a splitter pigtail to connect the single 30A power cord to the two inputs.

[carguy]

I do what Cannonball does. By having a splitter, I only need one 30 amp service. It is possible to overload the cuircuits this way. If ran A/C, Stove, Water heater and something that draws a fair ammount of current of a recepticle, you could overload a single 30 amp line. Just don't run em all at the same time and you'll be fine.

[Guest]

WhiteRockMike wrote:
Just to avoid possible confusion - the AC or A/C referred to in the responses is Air Conditioning, as opposed to the AC for Alternating Current in the original post

:worth :worth

BUCKANEER

:arr

[Guest]

Some marinas, like where I'm at now, have two 30A outlets for each slip, so you'd run two 30A cords to your boat. I also have two inlets, one feeds the aft A/C and the other the FWD. Down here it's good to have two A/C's.

[iceclimber]

+1 on the splitter. I used to wrestle with two cords and it was a pos. Plus my moorage only had one plug in per, so I was constantly having to find a spare from an empty slip. With the splitter I have found inner peace.

[Steve3218]

Bodie wrote:
Most boats I notice with 30A shore power have a single plug into the boat's system. Mine has 2, and there are 2 main breakers on the AC panel. Why would that be? It seems to me that 30A at the shore outlet = 30A at the AC panel, what is the purpose of dividing the supply into 2 circuits?

Bodie, my 1987 3218 is wired just like yours. No AC ever on the boat. I don't know why they did this but it was really

nice when I wired my inverter, I dedicated one of those circuits for the inverter so there is no way someone can turn

the wrong thing on and drain the batteries.

[nile]

Having two 30 amps inlets gives you the possibility of connecting two 30 amp cables to two 30 amps outlets and drawing 60 amps without overheating. By using a splitter you can sometimes draw 60 amps on one cable which is supposed to hold a 30 amp load only thus a lot of heat on the cable and the outlet and voltage loss. When on one cable you have to avoid running two A/C, the water heater, the battery charger and the hot plate together. limit the power draw to 3500 watts.