Author Topic: 110 vac hot and neutral reversed  (Read 1710 times)

Secret World

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  • Boat Model: Bavaria 30 Cruiser
  • Boat Year: 2007
110 vac hot and neutral reversed
« on: October 19 2020, 21:46 »
Hello: new Bavaria owner and new forum member; I'll try to search past posts before I post, so as not to abuse the privilege! In my pre-purchase survey, it's noted that the AC outlets on the boat are testing as reversed hot and neutral. The surveyor says, "they're lax about this in Europe, but you have to correct that in North America." So I started at the dock outlet: all good. At the shore power plug on the boat I got in the back and measured voltage across the hot/black and the ground, so good there. When I opened the AC panel in the boat I could see where the AC was coming into a connector with screw terminals. I swapped the hot/black with the neutral/white, and figured I was good. Powering up the AC again I left everything off but the panel outlet--it now tested Hot/Ground reversed! I couldn't understand this as I hadn't touched the green wire. So I reversed it back to the way it was before I repowered anything. What am I not understanding here?

Also, I need to replace the round AC outlet at the sink (weird place for a plug) as it's got a little bit of charring (otherwise works fine but I'd like to replace it.) I cannot find an online source for the Bavara round 110v single outlet--found a couple for EUR 220v. I'd rather not cut the cabinet to fit a duplex outlet.

Thanks for any help!

tckearney

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Re: 110 vac hot and neutral reversed
« Reply #1 on: October 26 2020, 13:40 »
Not quite sure about this but I assume you are in north Amarica.   As far as I am aware USA does not have a neutral on is ac supply system.     They are L1 and L2 and earth same as Europe but 110v instead of 220v.  Neutral is a UK thing as the neutral is strapped to earth at the star point of the distribution transformer.  .  I suspect that whatever your using for testing this is not suitable for european made boats.  I maybe wrong on this and would stand corrected. 

Secret World

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  • Boat Model: Bavaria 30 Cruiser
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Re: 110 vac hot and neutral reversed
« Reply #2 on: October 26 2020, 18:29 »
That is an interesting perspective! I'll do more research on marine AC. Thanks.