Pulling into a transient slip at a new marina can sometimes feel like a game of Russian Roulette. When you plug in to the shore power pedestal, will the connection be clean? Will your boat’s electrical system be blown up by a massive surge or will the power sag and try to drain your system. In a freshwater facility, is there current leaching into the water that could lead to an electric-shock drowning incident?
For sail and power cruisers, a dock boost transformer could be a worthwhile investment. ASEA Power Systems in Huntington Beach, Calif., makes Dock Boost Transformers that are designed to deliver protection from shore power issues including brownouts, spikes, sages and low-line or highline voltage conditions that arise from plugging into a dock pedestal. The DBTs provide three levels of boost to keep the host vessel powered when input voltages sag by as much as 35%. ASEA Power Systems is a brand of parent company Mission Critical Electronics under the Marine Power Division. Mission Critical represents a platform of brands and products focused on industrial electronic and electrical applications where durability, reliability and performance in hostile environments are a priority. In the marine industry, the company focuses on commercial marine vessels and yachts.
Marine Integrated Systems in Newport Beach, Calif., recommends a Dock Boost Transformer for boatowners who like to travel to new locations and use transient slips. “Boaters visiting marinas assume the shorepower is going to be fine and that is absolutely wrong,” said company president David Sell.
Asea’s DBT12/15 accepts any input voltage ranging from 167 to 270 with the DBT rated for 57 to 70 Hz and the DBT15 for 47 to 70 Hz. It provides a split phase 240 or 230-volt ouput. The DBT24 accepts voltages from 160 to 270 plus 400 volts and 480 volts, each with a wide range to provide a 230-volt split phase output.
Features of the DBTs include automatic restart from a brownout, blackout or overload, a fault shield for bonded, galvanic bridged/isolated ground, remote diagnostics through an RS-485 modbus and advanced power monitoring with customizable input and output parameters. A microprocessor provides over and under voltage/current protection. Each unit comes with a kWh meter.
The DBT12/15 model is designed for cruisers and yachts up to 75 feet long. The machines are air cooled and mount on the deck or sole of the vessel. The DBT12 weighs 128 pounds, is 13.1 inches wide, 12 inches tall and 18.7 inches deep. Step up to the DBT15 and the weight goes up to 164 pounds. This unit is 13 inches tall, 13.1 inches wide and 18.7 inches deep. Numbers jump extensively with the DBT24 because it weighs 427 pounds, stands 16.1 inches tall, is 19.6” wide and 24.7 inches deep. At Marine Integrated Systems, pricing for a DBT starts at $11,500.
The ASEA Trident system pairs two DBT12s to connect two 50-amp shorepower cords combined to a single 100-amp output. The pair of DBT12s provide three levels of boost to keep the vessel powered when input voltages sag by 30%. A paralleling box ensures that current is shared equally between the shore power cords, letting a boat owner control the amount of power drawn from the worst shore power cord conditions. If only one shore cord is available, the 50-amp source will be delivered to both outputs. When the second cord is connected, the sources will combine to form a single 100-amp output. If one cord fails, the unit will automatically fall back to a single-source solution. The method used to combine sources allows for sharing power between shore cords without the danger of tripping the most sensitive GFI equipped pedestal. The Trident has the same auto-restart, fault shield and remote diagnostic features found in the single DBT12.
Taking the same approach for even larger yachts, the Trident (24-48 KvA) lets two 100-amp shore cords be combined for a double power output. The pair of DBT 24s provide the same three levels of protection to keep a vessel powered with voltages sag by 35%. The paralleling box ensures that content is shared equally between the shore cord. This lets the captain maximize the amount of power the boat can draw from the shore cord conditions. When the shore power is 285-530 VAC, the Trident 48 can buck the power to the appropriate voltage. If only one shore cord is available, the 100-amp source will be delivered to both outputs. When the second cord is attached, the sources will combine to form a single 200-amp output. If one cord fails, the unit will automatically fall back to a single source solution.
“This is a high-quality way to manage incoming power against those spikes and against the sags in power,” said Sell. “When a spike occurs, it absorbs the surge and when a dip occurs the boat doesn’t know it happened.”
