Posts: 2754
Location: Mauston, Wisconsin | K-guys a quick lesson in power electronics. If your house was built with 2-prong outlets, it wasn't designed for today's electronic loads- this includes electronic battery chargers. All electronic loads, i.e., your computer, your boat battery charger, your TV, etc. have what we power electronics/electrical engineers ( guys like myself) call EMI/RFI filters in them. These filters frequently have what we call "leakage current" to chassis ground. This leakage current is limited by design and accepted industry standards to small values, i.e., 1 mA or less in most cases.
This is not a problem if the green safety ground/equipment grounding conductor is present in the supply circuit. Thus, the equipment (your charger) comes with a 3 conductor power cord and a 3-prong power plug at the supply end.
smally - Now the issue at hand. Is the charger defective? Probably not! What is defective is the absence of the equipment grounding conductor path back to the supply source.
These 2 prong to 3 prong cheater adapters frequently have an green wire or a terminal that is suppose to attach to the supply receptacle ground via a screw connection. If the wire is not attached or the adapter or the receptacle is not grounded there is a safety issue because of a lack of the safety ground path. Then, what's likely happening is you physically are becoming the leakage current path back to the source when you touch the boat. All electrical egineers know about this phenomena, i.e., Kirchhoff's law of currents.
Guess what over time EMI/RFI filters also deteriorate, i.e., the leakage current can increase to a point where the circuit breaker or fuse opens. However, this is action is also predicated on the fact you have a solidly connected equipment grounding conductor (green wire) path back to the source. In the case of a "compromised" safety grounding path, you have a potentially lethal situation. Is the manufacturer liabel? No, you are because you are not using the product as intended!
What can you do to protect yourself, your family and others? Follow Curley's advice. Get a extension cord with GFI protection. Then you might not wind up dead. Better yet have an licensed electrician install a GFI receptacle. You still might get shocked. The only real way to really protect yourself and your family/friends is to have the electrician install an 3-wire circuit and 3-prong outlet. Even then the outlet has to be GFI to meet current National Electrical Code for outside or garage receptacles.
Al
Edited by ESOX Maniac 9/25/2007 6:26 PM
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