As it turns out, Ben, I'm sneaking out of the office early this afternoon to go to the boat to some some maintenance (replacing the stock water pump) and there's a Home Depot 10 minutes from the yard. I'll stop in and cruise their electric department to see what they've got. Good recommendation!
Steve Weinstein S/V CAPTIVA 1997 Hunter 376, Hull #376 Sailing out of Oyster Bay, NY All outgoing mail protected by VIPRE A/V -----Original Message----- From: Ben Okopnik Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 2:37 PM To: liveaboard@liveaboardonline.com Subject: Re: [Liveaboard] Expensive Marine Elect components On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 02:04:50PM -0400, SteveW wrote: > > So I did some checking and discovered that while the larger, newer marinas > all provide the 50A 120/240 pedestals, there were still a huge amount of > older marina's with 50A, 120V pedestals. So I called Jamestown > Distributors > and found out that if I wanted an "adaptor" to use my "120/240" plug in a > straight "120" pedestal it would cost close to $250 - which was more than > I > paid for the 50A, 120/240V splitter!!!!!!!! Gack - what a ripoff! As I dimly recall, the last time I had to deal with something like that, I borrowed the needed pigtail and went scrounging at a Home Depot. Lo and behold, one of the available high-amp plugs had almost the exact pattern of prongs needed... in fact, 30 seconds of work with a file made it fit perfectly. Something like 18 bucks instead of the $150 or so that West Marine wanted. Unfortunately, I don't recall exactly which plug that was - I don't spend much time at marinas - but it's one of that 30/50A 120V/240V bunch. Worth checking at HD if you're faced with spending that kind of green. In a very distant, totally-broke-sailor past, I've also just taken a piece of 12 gauge Romex cable, wired it to a standard 120V wall socket, and poked the wires on the other end through holes drilled in a piece of hard rubber that matched the pattern of the socket on the end of a 50A extension cable. Then, I cinched and wrapped the whole thing with electrical tape so it couldn't move, and hid it away in my anchor locker. Not a recommendation - more of a survival tactic. :) Ben -- OKOPNIK CONSULTING Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming 443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list Liveaboard@liveaboardonline.com To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to liveaboard-j...@liveaboardonline.com To unsubscribe send an email to liveaboard-le...@liveaboardonline.com The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/liveaboard@liveaboardnow.org The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list Liveaboard@liveaboardonline.com To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to liveaboard-j...@liveaboardonline.com To unsubscribe send an email to liveaboard-le...@liveaboardonline.com The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/liveaboard@liveaboardnow.org The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html