Made it to OC, genset question

[JK]

First I want to know what happened to the 90 and sunny day they were calling for? What I thought was about 30 minutes of work turned into 5 hours. Wanted to catch the outgoing tide in the DE river but it didn't happen since we left around noon. A lot of debris in the water ranging from twigs to huge trees with root system. Not even out of the no wake zone of the marina and it begins to rain. Figures in the 7 years we've had this boat I get caught in about an hour of rain with NO enclosure. Talk about cold and wet. Boat not only looks good but feels different, no more squeaks and rattles and feels much more solid. Had a nice and uneventful ride from Philly to OCNJ. Only thing was on the port motor #2 injector line worked itself loose and we sprayed a little diesel. tightened it up and all is well. The new raymarine stuff is awesome!

Now genset question. Wanted to shop vac the bilges one more time before we set sail. Plugged in and got about 5-10 seconds and the unit died. Figured with the air conditioning and refrig on maybe it tripped the AC circuit breaker on the panel. Nope. So now the genset runs but there is no power to the breaker. Pulled the sound shield off and reset the 30 amp breaker on the genset and still no power to the panel. The manual says it could be a capacitor (if run overloaded under very hot conditions) but can that be? Only 18 hours on the unit. When the shop vac cut off you could hear the load being taken off of the genset. Didn't bring the shore power cord to test that side of the ac system.

Any ideas on the NextGen?

See you guys on Friday.

--JK

[Doc]

Where R U keeping her in OC ?

[JK]

Doc-

Same place as 3 summers ago at Harbor House, 2nd and Bay. It's not on the end and is surrounded by much bigger boats so you'll have to look for her.

--JK

[Harry Babb]

What kind of genset do you have?? I doubt that I can be much help solving your problem............I just installed a Westerbeke 5KW in my Bertram. I am going to watch this post for my own education.
Harry Babb

[JK]

Just spoke to NextGen and they say if all of the breakers have been reset then it is the capacitor on the unit itself.

--JK

[In Memory of Vicroy]

Sounds right to me. That 30 amp breaker is probably a little much for a 3.5 KW set. My calculation show 3.5 KW @ 120 volts is 29.16 amps. Might want to back off to a 25 amp breaker. A shop vac is a power eating sucker.....

UV

[JohnD]

I have an older onan, but there's also a breaker on my genset itself, aside from the one at the electrical pannel. Also, recheck the wiring, could be a bad splice at one end or the other.

Hopefully it's something simple.


br,
JohnD

[JK]

Talked to the guys at NextGen and figured out what is going on. It is a blown capacitor. They said with a long heavy draw on the unit that will allow the breaker to pop whereas a quick heavy load (says vaccuums in general are tough on generators due to the initial load) will pop the capacitor. $51 and a 20 minute job they say. I'll replace it on Thursday evening and hopefully everything will be fine. Then it's on to AC.

--JK