3700 SY -- 120V Electrical system

[Big Daddy]

I have a 2005 Maxum 3700 SY. I recently had a 120V electrical system problem due to very unbalanced load connections on the 120V system. This boat has two 120V, 30-Amp lines. Line 1 has 54 Amps of connected load, including both A/C's and the water heater, and Line 2 has only 25 Amps connected load. Also, on the main panel, some of the other Line 1 loads are actually located on the Line 2 side of the panel -- a very misleading situation. This same panel is also used on a few other Maxum models, probably the 3500 SY and 4200 SY, and maybe also on other U.S. Marine boat brands.

My Line 1 shore power connection at the transom melted and nearly caused a fire. It badly burned both the boat's receptacle and the end of the shore power cord plugged into it. After much correspondence with Dave Crosby in Seattle, his answer was basically "Tough Cookies - that's the way we design and build them. You have to do a better job of managing your power usage. It's not our problem, and we are not going to correct it. You can correct it on your own if you want." Although they did reimburse me for my cost to replace the receptacle and shore power cord.

I realize that power usage must be properly managed on any boat, but this situation is way beyond being reasonable. I will be moving the water heater connection over to Line 2 to help alleviate the imbalance. Has anyone else out there had simialr 120V problems?

[seapuppy]

BD
I have the bayliner 340 and basically the same setup...we have 2 inputs with 30amp loads...when I'm on load 1 only..I'm on parallel....splitting the load to both panels...however my loads can be managed by a 50 amp splitter on my 2 boat inputs....so far on 2 boats...I've never had any issues on either boats....

as for the dealer tossing you into the wind....what dealer was that??..cuz I've never had that problem with the dealer here in everett...they want my boat working as badly as I do.....if your not getting satisfaction from an unsatisfactory response..I can give you a number of a VP for lake union searay repairs and customer satisfaction...

let me know if this can be handled better...

SP

[Big Daddy]

I'm on the east coast, on the Chesapeake Bay. The dealer is in the Baltimore area, and his service dept. is totally incompetent. So I started corresponding with Dave Crosby, who is the National Service Manager in Seattle for Maxum/Meridian/U.S. Marine, so I'm not sure if there is anybody much higher who might provide better service. Crosby stated that the main reason they put all those big loads on Line 1 -- two A/C's, water heater, and Microwave -- is mainly because many marinas in the country have only one 30-Amp receptacle per slip, and the owner uses a splitter to get power to both Lines. Not a 50-Amp splitter like you mention, but a 30-Amp to two 30-Amp splitter.

Regarding the parallel switch -- mine is located directly under the "Ship's Power" switch for Line 2, so it can't be turned on unless the Shore Power switch on that side is OFF, and the interlock slide is raised. Only then can I turn the Ship's Power switch ON. But the indicator light for the parallel switch is always lit, whether the parallel switch is in the ON or OFF position, which seems to indicate that the parallel function is always energized. But apparently not, because I was always plugged into two separate 30-Amp receptacles when using Shore Power, and it overloaded and burned Line 1 only -- that indicates that the lines were not in fact paralleled. Regardless, it's a very unsafe situation -- I'm very lucky my boat did not catch fire.

[seapuppy]

ok...I see now...we had a big maxum out here called Big Daddy also...so..naturally I was thinking you wuz him...hemmingways....you got the highest guns working on the issue....

hope you get it all sorted....mine works great and we often plug into a 50 amp load and split it out to 2 30's.....that's the way it's supposed to work...or use line #1 and parallel the breaker panel.....

glad you didn't burn the boat up....that would definitely suck...


keep us informed on what happens...

SP :hello: