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hi everyone jeff cote here with boatingtechtalk.com we've got a question from gordon gordon has a question about advice on how to run a generator on his boat so gordon asks jeff i've got a 10 kilowatt generator and a 50 amp shore power i was told that when i'm running the generator i should only draw about 40 amps and not go to 50 amps like i do when i'm on the dock what's the reason for this um well first of all i'm not sure that the max amperage for a 10 kilowatt generator is 40 amps it really depends and gordon doesn't specify this is this a 220 boat or 120 boat i'm going to assume based on the question that this is a 220 boat and the output of the generator is 220 at 40 maybe goes probably maybe up to 50 amps and the shore power is 50 amps 220. so the reality is even for shore power even if you have a 30 amp a 50 amp it doesn't matter if it's a 120 220 think about it like your car even though your car might be able to go to 6 500 rpms you would rarely want to redline your engine meaning go to the max rpms and the max speed that your car can do now of course you it can do it but it can also it's going to make you're going to want to make sure that it's doing it well and that there's no hiccups so generally as a rule of advice even for sure power if for example on my own boat i have a 30 amp 120 at 20 volt shore power connection i'll try to limit my shore power connection to about 85 of continuous uh draw so maybe i'll do about 25 amps max on a 30 amp shore power connection and the same would apply for a generator you don't want to have your generator let's say it can output 50 amp at 220 you don't want to be taking 50 amp at 220. you want to pull back a little bit and generally it's about 85 or if you want to be safe 80 of max output it's the same thing with their engines right even as a sailboat owner and even power boaters very few of us are going to go wide open throttle right loaded max like for example diesel engine how many of us are going to be running our engines at 3 200 rpm because you can you can but you can't and so you want to throttle back for shore power regardless if it's generator or shore power and maybe sort of do it for 80 85 of max and by doing so you're gonna lessen the chances of having overheating at the connection points especially the handoffs where shore power connects to your boat um and it's just i guess at the end of the day is you don't want to work anything too hard so even though it says it can do it you don't want to have it do it so it's a great question from gordon and thanks for asking and thanks for all of you for tuning in and i wish you all safe boating so if you're curious again go on our website and find out more answers and solutions with this sort of setup and thanks for asking and thanks for all of you for listening and tuning in Videolytics