electrical puzzel

[thereheis]

what would cause the reverse polarity light to all of the sudden come on ?boats been on blocks for 1 1/2 years and plugged into 110 volt just for the battery charger.no other 110 v on bolt all ripped out.

phil

[In Memory Walter K]

First get a cheap polarity tester and go to the plg you're plugged into. If the polarity there is correct, unplug the extension cord from the charger and check the polarity out of your extension cord. If that's OK, move on to the on-board input recepticle. Look behind it. On mine, the polarity checker is a buzzer not a light, but it's connected behind the recepticle. One of the wires might have corroded off or deteriorated causing your problem. If all that is OK move on to your actual charger. Are all your wires correct and well connected? Lastly, check your batteries. Did one die and/or short out? Hope one of these steps solves your mystery. Walter

[thereheis]

checked all the wire and connections and still have reverse polarity..the only thing that is 110 is the charger,nothing else,checked the line in from the barn no prob.it just like all of the sudden BAM reverse polarity lite on,on has 3 wires to the charger,blk/wh/gr/ blk / line wh/ground gr/ neu, but what gets me is i only have 2 wires on the house plug outlet, blk / wh. is thwere something that i am over looking ??

phil

[In Memory Walter K]

Lets see. White is neutral, Black is current/power, green is ground. You have not changed anything in the wiring to the boat, charger or the house (source) and bam all of a sudden a reverse polarity light goes on. It was working perfectly before. Your home/source plug is a two pronger without a third ground pin. Are the blades on your 2 pronged plugs the old fashioned kind with the two blades exactly alike or are they the newer ones where one blade is wider than the other? Same question for your wall plug. On the newer ones and the 3-pronged ones, you can't reverse the polarity (if they're wired correctly) if you wanted to. With the older ones with both blade sizes the same, or an older wall plug whose slots are the same, you have a 50-50 chance of plugging it in with reverse polarity. Doesn't matter much when plugging in a lamp or power to a tool, but a charger with an indicater would sure as hell catch it. Any chance someone accidentally pulled out the plug and plugged it back in "backwards"? He'd never know. Walter

[SteveM]

I found this old thread on the forum but it does not completely apply to my set up.

My boat has a 30amp shore power plug.
Today I noticed the Reverse Polarity light on. See video.

Any of you electrical wizards give me a hint as to what to look for to fix this?

https://youtu.be/y2u2BoFsV5I

[SteveM]

OK...after 3 hours of trouble shooting. We pinpointed it to the pedestal. Which somehow had 240v! Not 120v as it should and did.
We went to the breaker box and found the neutral going out was correct; however once it got to the pedestal it had 120v...so did the black wire.
The landscapers were here today pulling out a hedge and fence and had the stump grinder going. We surmized that they must have hit the conduit and shorted the white and black wire together sending 120v down each wire to the pedestal.

I have since kept the boat plug pulled. I hope we didn't do damage to the battery charger, or the fridge. Those were the only two things "on".

Should be fun putting in new conduit down to the dock and under. Hoping I can find some conduit in the yard to make this easier.

[Tony Meola]

Steve

Surprised the breaker send of ground result did not trip.

[SteveM]

Tony
The breaker on the house popped. I noticed the boat lift didn't have power, so I flipped the breaker back on.
Then when I went on the boat I noticed the reverse polarity lights.

It's gonna be fun running new conduit to the dock through the yard and under the dock again, now that everything is built.