Generator issue/Carver 404

Just to expand on Pascal's reply, you are not able to draw power from shore and the generator at the same time. You have to throw the "Shore" breaker on your main panel to OFF to be able to slide the safety bar iover it which then exposes the "Generator" switch which you flip to ON. Your motors, generator and air conditioning all draw their cooling water from under the boat and expell it overboard. If you follow the intake hoses from those units you'll find a seacock with a valve on it and sometimes a sea strainer. These are often closed during winter layup, but remain open at all other times. The a/c should expell water in a strong flow from the side of the boat. The motors generally through the exhaust. The gen generally also expells through the main exhausts, but sometimes from a seperate exhaust. Start your gen and look for where it exhausts. When no water comes out you won't go far.

Just a quick question while on the subject; on my panel I don't have any gen/shore power slider and have wondered what would happen if my shore power is hooked up and main 1 & 2 on, then turn on my Kohler ; would I get a big 'poof' as the gen electric meets the shore electric ? I've anticipated that there was circuitry built in to avoid shorting, but haven't had the nerve or enough curiousity to have both on at the same time, so always unplug the shore power before running the generator.

You would overload the circuits and hopefully blow a breaker. Something is wrong here though unless someone added a gen down the line. If so they must have put in some sort of switch to avoid this scenario. Look for it. If there is none add one. They may have used something akin to a battery switch (1-2, but hopefully no position for both).

Just a quick question/observation: Do most of you folks leave your thru hulls open when the boat is in the water unattended?
I always close all of mine (5) when leaving the boat. I figure it exercises the thru hulls so they won't stick, and might prevent a sinking.
Any reason not to close them? I'm so in the habit of doing this I don't think I'll ever forget to open them.
Tim

Nothing wrong with closing them. Most people don't because it's an extra job each time you use the boat and for fear of forgetting to open one. That could lead to serious damage. BTW, I assume that you leave the one for your a/c open.

Almost every gas powered Carver I have ever seen including mine has an automatic switch that once the power is disconnected from the boat the gen takes over, assuming its already started. There would be NO switch to manually flip from shore to gen like you guys are talking about.

Sounds to me like you have a flipped breaker on the actual generator itself. Take a look on the front side of the generator, Im willing to bet that the breaker is tripped.

Not at this time. The temporary slip I'm currently in only has 15amp of shore power and I choose to run the battery charger and refrig. Once at my permanent slip I will use the AC however.
All of my thru hulls are difficult to get to requiring entry into the engine room. The stbd engine thru hull was impossible to close even when I slithered into the ER. So I fabricated 5 small brackets that I've attached to each thru hull allowing me to open and close them with a boat hook and with out having to enter the ER.

Carver 370 Wrote: Almost every gas powered Carver I have ever seen including mine has an automatic switch that once the power is disconnected from the boat the gen takes over, assuming its already started.

That is also true with my diesel powered '98 355 ACMY. Impossible to have 2 sources of AC on an AC bus at the same time.

Tim

That sounds about right. Once the generator is turned on, I hear an automatic switch behind the AC panel kick on, so must assume that it closes when the gen is off and shore power is on.

Any Carver in that year range will have an automatic switch to detect A/C vs. gennie power.

If the generator continues to run after starting, then the raw water intake is open. It doesn't open automatically as it is a standard brass ball valve. If water isn't coming in, the genset would shut itself off.

If you're not getting power from the genset, the first thing I would check would be the white master breaker on the front of the genset control box. That is usually a black box with an on/off switch and a master circuit breaker. If that is on, then check the master breaker on the electrical panel. If that's on, then check the breakers for the A/C unit. Make sure the A/C water pump is on as well. If that's off (at least on my Carver), the A/C will not come on.