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welcome to boatingtechtalk.com

god it feels good to say this for the

first time welcome everyone

and thanks for watching so what we're

going to be doing today

is we've got a question from a fellow

voter and this is a popular question

okay very popular question jeff really

enjoy your videos

thank you appreciate the feedback quick

question

i moored at a large marina

and i'm going through a lot of zincs

what is the difference between

a galvanic isolator and an isolation

transformer

and which one would help me the most if

my boat is mostly just going marina to

marina

great question okay first of all

galvanic ice lasers galvanic isolators

and

isolation transformers are devices that

we install

on the ac side of our boat to protect

our boats

and the underwater metals from having

stray current corrosion

uh the least expensive of the two is

called a galvanic isolator

strongly suggested item for all boaters

relatively affordable us probably about

300

u.s maybe 400 depending on the model

that you choose

easily installable and what it does is

it protects your boats from

stray dc currents going over the ac

grounding circuit

so when we connect our boats to shore

power if you've got a 120 volt

circuit you're gonna have three wires

that are in that cable you're gonna have

a hot

a neutral and a ground and all boats in

the marina are effectively all connected

together through these shore power cords

and if you want to prevent your boat

from having corrosion issues

you install a galvanic isolator on the

ac grounding connection

it basically will stop dc currents so

that's the sort of first

tier of defense all right next

isolation transformers there's really

honestly

isolation transformers are great but why

does not every single boater have one

well there's a few reasons and they're

good

one is weight galvanic isolate not

galvanic isolators but

isolation transformers weigh a lot they

weigh 100 pounds 200 pounds 250 pounds

these are heavy items not all boaters

can actually fit something that heavy on

their boat

second they take a lot of space galvanic

isolator is maybe something about this

bot this big it's tiny it's not small an

isolation transformer is like

over a foot cube bigger than that

where are we going to mount an isolation

transformer on our boats

the other issue is cost isolation

transformers can cost two thousand three

thousand four thousand

depending on the size and the amperage

and it goes from there again

way more money than a galvanic isolator

but here's the beauty

an isolation transformer completely

isolates one's boats from the shore

power connection

not only does it address reverse

polarity which is something that happens

on a lot of our boats which is a really

bad thing and there's going to be a

separate video about reverse polarity

but it also addresses the grounding

connection and having straight current

corrosion going over

the ac grounding connection so assuming

you have a boat that can

and you can afford and you have the

space and you can allow for the weight

of an isolation transformer

you will and you should install an

isolation transformer on your boat on

the ac

side now if you can't for whatever

reason and there's a lot of good reasons

like i said

then the next tier of defense is a

galvanic isolator

most boats that have a lot of underwater

metals we'll definitely

add the factory like for example sea ray

and a lot of the big builders even

tiaras and north ovens and salines

you name a boat if it's remotely

expensive and it's a power boat

the factory and the techs of the

factory are going to have installed an

isolation transform

transformer on board to protect your

underwater metals and it makes sense

big fan but again they're expensive

they're heavy and they're big

so that's the reason why we don't all

have one great question and thanks for

asking

thanks for watching this video and we'll see you on

the next video

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