SIELTEC Leakage Current monitoring
DC Leakge Current Corrosion on a Boat can be Catastrophic
The ElectroSentinel is designed to provide piece of mind to boat owners who fear leakage current corrosion that can cause enormous damage to their vessel. Leakage currents in boats can cause catastrophic corrosion in a very short time. The reason is that unlike galvanic corrosion, leakage currents have the energy of the boat battery system to accelerate the damage.
Leakage currents are currents that are caused by insulation breakdown, or any mechanism that allows currents to flow in any circuit that is not the normal return path to battery. This could be bilge water providing a return path through metal fittings, causing those fittings to corrode fast.
The Siletec ElectroSentinel does not in any way monitor or provide any remedy for Galvanic Corrosion. It simply uses leakage current detection techniques to alert the vessel owner to conditions that can cause Leakage Current Corrosion.
How Can DC Leakage Currents be Detected?
Leakage currents are difficult to detect because the failure mode to develop leakage currents can be so varied. A connector in bilge water, a navigation light with a low resistance path to ground, a faulty water pump, a faulty bilge pump, a chaffed supply cable to a binnacle compass light. Any of these various scenarios can provide a potential problem that can be an aggressive catalyst for corrosion and may go unnoticed for some time.
Vigilance in recognising and acting on any unusual physical characteristics of the boat hardware is vital in halting potential problems before too much damage is endured.
Periodic voltage checks to various parts of the electrical system can lead to leakage current detection but it does require some discipline by the boat owner to undertake these tests.
Is there a better way?
Electrical current flowing to a device and returning from a device are by definition identical. By measuring the current flowing to a device and current flowing from the device at the switchboard, and measuring any imbalance in that current we can identify any leakge current, current returning via another path.
The Sieltec ElectroSentinel provides immediate alerts to those leakage currents by monitoring send and return currents from devices in high risk areas like bilge pumps, sump pumps and the like. By monitoring the balance between the positive and the negative paths, sensing for any imbalance and alerting the skipper for imbalance on those lines, the electro sentinel provides piece of mind that those circuits are balanced. Balanced circuits means that no leakage is occurring. If both currents are in balance, leakage currents from that circuit cannot be the cause of accelerated corrosion. By fitting the device to the main supply to a switch panel, all circuits fed by that panel are monitored.
Many circuits can pass through the core of the Current sensor, for instance the cables leading to the mast of a yacht could all pass through the core and be monitored.
Practical operation
FAQs
Q.Does electrosentinal solve all of my corrosion problems?
A. Absolutely not. The Electro Sentinel addresses one cause of corrosion. The most aggressive cause, Leakage Current Corrosion.
Q. Can Electrosentinal be fitted after manufacture or only during manufacture?
A. Both, it can be fitted during manufacture or aftermarket.
Q. Does the Electrosentinal use much power?
A. No, the Electrosentinal uses a very small amount of power.
Q. Can I have an audio alarm if the leakage current is detected?
A. Yes, simply fit the ES-3 remote alarm panel
Q. How much current can be caried through the core and still maintain the accuracy required to detect leakage currents?
A. We have Lab tested up to 400Amps and differential balance has been maintained.
Additional Information
The advantage of the ElectroSentinel is the ease of installation. Most vessels have a central distribution point for control of electrical circuits. Positive and negative wires to high risk devices return to this distribution point. This is where the current sensors for the Electro Sentinel are installed.
The wires simply passed through the current sensing core. They are not terminated onto a shunt like normal current sensors. They simply pass through the core. A balanced state creates no current reading while an unbalanced state alarms the boat owner to a leakage current somewhere.
Multiple cables can be passed through the one core, for instance cabling up a mast can be bundled to sense for stray current with great effectiveness.
Learn More
ElectroSentinel doesn't address all boating corrosion concerns but it does address a major one. It provides peace of mind that the most aggressive cause of corrosion in boats can at least be monitored and acted upon by the owner before it is too late. Please download our white paper to learn more.