I have a 1994 4788. Question is to do with shore power cords.-gctid804794

[HotwireJim59]

So the question I have is to do with incoming power. At my marina they have 125 volt twist lock 30 amp single pole and 50 amp 240 volt two pole power. The PO had a crazy shore power cord home made adaptor to feed all three lines. I got ride of it. It was unsafe. He also had a 240 volt y adaptor to two 30 amp 125 volt cord set up. Which feeds line 1 and 2. Line 3 is a 50 amp 125 volt. Question one is that the typical set up Bayliner used? Line 3 is all heaters. Which do not power up via the two 30 amp cords. I do not have a parallel switch. I understand some of the newer 4788 do Is there a adaptor cord made to connect all three lines out there? If I did a jumper wire some how. It would back feed my 50 amp shore power plug. Thanks for your in put.

[stargazerwa]

I am not sure this will answer all of your questions. It is my understanding that all 45xx and 4788s came with parallel switches from the factory. I believe 3 30 amp lines were standard unless the boat had air conditioning installed then at least one 50 amp was standard. I find that a single 30 amp often requires lots of load swapping to keep water hot, cook and to provide any electric heat. A way to split a 50 amp, often available at the places we dock would be very useful.

[HotwireJim59]

Yup mine is not set up that way. Just a switch which say dock side, off , gen set. That is it. Three two pole breakers, one each for line 1,2 and 3. With both 30 amps connected. Line three is left off. My 1994 might be a very early run or something. I have no idea. Ill post a picture of my panel. Maybe I missing something?

[weiss]

My 1994 has parallel switches at the top of the panel to configure the power distribution....

[HotwireJim59]

So I looked up the 1994 4788 owners manual. It shows my electrical panel. No switch to parallel my loads. I am going to make a safe adaptor shore power cable. So I'll take one of my two 30 amp 125 volt twist lock cord connection and feed into a y plus one adaptor. So 125 volt 30 amp in and out. Plus a 50amp 125 volt which will feed my line three. I will just get a big plastic heavy duty junction box. Install some rubber coated Allen head split bolts. One for Hot, Neutral and ground. Heat shrink all leads. Gasket cover, Marine compression connectors. Done!

[Pacrimrat]

Does yours look like this?

[HotwireJim59]

No just one switch at the bottom. Shore, off, generator. Even show in the owner manual. Must of been a early 94 4788.

[Alan_Teed]

My 1994 4788 connects to shore with two Y adapters via a single 30 amp cord. This is how it was connected by the PO and it works fine for me. The only concern ith this arrangement is to make sure not to run more than 30 amps in the aggregate on the boat at any one time. Therefore on the rare occasions that we have electric heat on, we make sure to turn it off before using a hairdryer (etc). Not perfect but, in our usage this makes more sense than managing two shore cords everytime we dock.

On my last boat we had a 50 amp cord and I hated dragging that monster around!

As an aside, our 220v/240v European and other foreign cousins get to use a shore power cord that is about as thick/heavy as your average domestic extension cord.

[mmichellich]

Do you have the amp meters above each column of breakers?

[HotwireJim59]

yes
..........

[HotwireJim59]

So Alan your incoming into the vessel. is it 30/125, 30/125, 50/125?

[jmoultray]

The best solution is to use a single 50amp 125/250 cable from the dock to your boat. At your boat you connect a splitter that gives you two 50A 125v. Connect one of the ends into line 3. Connect a second splitter that goes from 50A 125 to two 30A 125. Connect both of those 30A plugs into lines 1 and 2. You now have a full 50a 125 available to line 3 and 30 amps to each line 1 and 2, but with a maximum of 50a combined on line 1 and 2.

125/250 cords/plugs are really just two 50a 125v hot wires (plus a ground and neutral), if that helps you conceptualize how this works so well.

This is what I use and it makes it easy so you only have to drag a single cord down the dock while providing maximum power to the boat. When at marinas without 50A 125/250 plugs you will need to use 30a 125v cables. Use three cables/plugs if you can (on line 3 you will need an adapter pigtail from 30a 125v to 50a 125v). If only two plugs are available you will need a splitter from 30 125v to two 30a 125v, which will limit the combined use of those two lines to 30a. If only a single plug is available you would need two splitters, and your total usage would be limited to 30a.

Those of us with the parallel switches can avoid having to split in this manner as our switches do it for us, but the above advice about using a single 50 125/250 and splitting it up is still important and useful as it gets us maximum power without dragging three different cords down the dock--and of course very few docks would have 3 plugs available anyway.

[smitty477]

"Connect a second splitter that goes from 50A 125 to two 30A 125"

You will have a max of 50 amps /125 volts between the two lines on the splitter.

This can work fairly well if he has the voltmeters on top of each line for monitoring load.

FWIW - I would add the parallel switches if I intended to do any appreciable cruising.

They are well worth the effort and costs, I cannot imagine whey they were left out.

[jmoultray]

I did of course mention that the first two lines would be limited to a combined 50amps.

Using the parallel switch you would be limited to 30 amps total on line 1 and 2, or on 1 and 3, or on all 3 combined--you would not gain any advantage by having the parallel switch in that respect vs. the splitting scenario I described.

The cost of the parallel switches and wiring is substantial, I can't imagine getting it done for less than a boat unit, likely quite a bit more. Personally I use the parallel switches very rarely--most marinas have 50 amp 125/250 power, and even if they don't, I usually wind up running multiple 30 amp cords down the dock in order to have more than a total of 30 amps available, thus negating any use of the parallel switches.

In the OP's situation the cost of installation is far more than carrying an extra 30 amp y cable.

The other advantage is that the twist lock inlets (on the boat) are notoriously prone to overheating and burning themselves up (if not the whole boat). I would rather split outside the boat, even though it is more cumbersome as it will distribute the load among multiple inlets.

[Alan_Teed]

"HotwireJim59" post=805160 wrote:
So Alan your incoming into the vessel. is it 30/125, 30/125, 50/125?

No. My boat has three 30/125 inputs. I use two Y connectors to connect a single 30amp cord from the 30/125 supply ~ through the two Ys to the three boat inputs. Therefore I have 30/125 on each of the three branches of the circuit board BUT a total of 30 amps in the aggregate over all three branches.

Is that clear?

Here is an attempt at illustrating that with two "Y" connectors, Y1 and Y2

Boat 1}

"Y1"~~~~GOES TO~~~~~~~~~ Output }

Boat 2}

Output of above "Y1" }

"Y2"~~~~~~~~~~~~~GOES TO dock power supply

Boat 3} }