30 amp shore power or 15 amp shore power

[BRAZO]

I have been doing some leg work on our soon to be project of adding shore power to our CD22.

Here are some of our requirements:

-- we have a Norcold refridge
-- we will have a laptop with Internet access
-- we love anchoring out for a few days at a time
-- we are coming from a larger boat with generator/inverter/etc
-- we have 2 starting batteries
-- we have 2 house batteries
-- we have two boys (16yrs/11yrs) that like things that like Electricity


What would you suggest for our shore power -- 30 amp or 15 amp?

If we went with the simplier 15 amp, we would get a 10 amp battery charger to charge the 3 battery banks -- is this doable or would it take to long to re-charge?

I plan on buying a EU2000 Honda Generator. I assume that having a battery charger larger than the amps being pushed out by the generator would do us no good (while on the hook at least)?

If we go with the 15 amp shore power (then the 10 amp charger), does it make any sense to go with the EU2000 instead of the EU1000?

I don't know if it is worth going with the 30 amp. When we are on shore power, well then the boat will have many hours to re-charge. It is when we are on the hook with the generator that we need a quick recharge.

What should I consider when going with the 15 amp solution -- meaning what will I be missing either now or in the future.

Thanks for your help and have a nice evening.

[colobear]

At least out here most marinas have 30 or 50 amp power so you could not connect your 15 amp shore power cord. You can always put a 15 amp adapter on a 30 amp cord and connect to a 15 amp shore power system but not vice versa. It seems that a 30 amp system would be more flexible.

[Sea Wolf]

[thataway]

It is rare that you will use more than 15 amps on a C Dory 22. There is no water heater. Even if you use a microwave, it will be less than 15 amps or 1200 watts.
A small electric heater uses less than 15 amps, The 30 amp guest charger (over kill for most 22's will only use 7.5 amps max current of 110 V power and the usually used Guest 2611 (10 amps total, 5 amps each battery) will only draw 2.5 amps max current at 110 volts shore power.

You can certainly use a 30 amp circuit--and a 30 amp input socket, a 30 amp cord with #10 wire and a 30 amp plug--this will be much more expensive than a 15 amp input socket, a couple circuit breaker distribution board, and a #12 wire core, with a 30 amp plug on the end--or a 15 amp plug if you go to many marinas which have 15 amp or 20 amp plugs. Either way, you will have to make a 15 amp cord with a male 15 amp plug from the generator.

What will you be running off a Honda 2000i generator? The only thing I can think of would be a 1200 watt microwave--there are 700 watt microwaves, if you have to have that. A ceramic heater will run off a Honda 1000i on low power--and that is plenty to heat a 22's cabin. There is no water heater in a 22, you will only use a couple of amps for a refrigerator--if you have one.

Don't confuse the 12 volt output of the battery charger of what it requires in the way of input. Although you may want a quick charge from the generator, it is not going to happen. Generally you don't want to charge a battery at more than 25% of its capacity--and a 100 amp hour battery will require 50 amps to recharge--that is two hours at 25 amps, and a 30 amp charger will require
only 7.5 amps (easily obtained from a Honda 1000i).

We cruised for two months in our 25 last summer--it has a hot water heater, which we only used when at docks--a microwave, which can run on the EU 1000, or our inverter--and a refrigerator. We have a 10 amp battery charger, plus a Honda 130 HP which puts out about 35 amps from the alternator. We carried a 30 amp charger, which we can hook directly into a circuit to charge one set of house batteries (we have two sets of 220 amps each). This will, plus the built in 10 amp guest charger will run on eco mode off the 1000 watt Honda generator. However, we never had to use the 30 amp charger in 2 months. We spent less than 1/3 of the nights at a dock--and rarely if ever ran the generator.

I just wonder what you have that will require so much power that you will have to run the generator? Most computers will run on 100 watt or less (about 10 amps 12 volts) inverters--plus you probably will not run a number of hours a day. DVD's or games? I would get the kids into kayaking or fishing and away from the electronic games--when our kids were growing up on boats they never used them when we were boating. They spent all summers and most vacations--plus many weekends on the boats.

For us on the 25--the generator is in case we need it for the 5000 BTU air conditioner--or the microwave, or in some rare instance (which we yet to find) to charge batteries--basically a back up. On the Tom Cat we do have an EU 2000--there we run an air conditioner, and heat water--but again, not often!

[BRAZO]

Excellent -- that is exactly the information I was looking for. I want to keep things simple, but at the same time I want us to be comfortable and enjoy our cruising just like we did on our Sundowner Tug.

I was definitely confused on the Battery Charger input -vs- output.

I think we'll stick to the 15 amp solution -- much easier and less expensive (now I'll have more money to spend on some other boating item).

I have some more questions, but I'll do another post for those.

Thanks again.