Seems worth contacting the manufacturer. They may have some useful info and it would be good just to let them know you have this problem. Being a business, they won't fall all over themselves to confess to large liabilities, but a few reports and complaints might save others if it's a problem with one of their suppliers.
I believe that bonding creates more problems than it purportedly solves. If you are "permanently" near other boats with electrical problems, you might be affected; if your own electrical system isn't grounded properly, especially the AC side which carries relatively large amounts of power, you might have some stray currents you don't know about. Even though a fitting is not bonded, if it's in the path of a large stray current, one side could be a slightly different potential (voltage) than the other and thus have a risk of galvanic action. The commonly accepted protection from shore power faults (assuming all your own wiring is problem free) is the isolation transformer or the galvanic-isolator. The transformer is large and heavy (100# and up), sometimes slightly noisy (hum) and fairly expensive; the isolator is small (1/4 shoe box) and only somewhat expensive. The transformer is pretty bullet proof and can do other things; the isolator can die in the breach (get one that tells you when it's dead) and only handles small amount of "bad" current. I haven't looked for 5 years or so, but IIRC galvanic isolators start about $100 and I think I could get a transformer made up semi custom for about $600 or so (but the sky's the limit for that stuff and the price of copper is out of sight and climbing right now); again that was a few years ago, it took some looking and it was only for about 2KW. I haven't looked at this can of worms for a while, but I think you can use any modern DVOM to look for small voltages in places they shouldn't be. The hardest part is making sure you get a good and true connection with the test probes or clips and this is where a better grade of instrument earns it's keep; and keep you flesh away from the probe tip or the DVOM will read _you_. Somebody else will have to chime in on what and where to look, though. Rufus -- See Exclusive Video: 10th Annual Young Hollywood Awards http://www.hollywoodlife.net/younghollywoodawards2008/ _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
