110V trips the GFI on my garage?

[Jared J]

Originally Posted by steve dunham

GFCI"S are mandatory for "ALL" 120 VAC receptacles installed in garages (Exemptions for freezers and garage door openers were removed 6 years ago) . In my 40 years as an electrician I have replaced less than a dozen GFCI receptacles because of failure and almost all of the failures were the low end, home improvement store, Chinese GFI receptacles. Suggesting that the solution to the problem is removing the GFI is foolish and dangerous . Laying under a vehicle on a damp concrete garage floor with a 120 VAC tool in your hand and no GFCI protection is a recipe for disaster . If proposed code changes go through homes will soon have total GFI and arc fault protection . If you read the IAEI articles on home electrocutions your opinion may change

I didn't suggest he do anything, just stated what worked for me. I've replaced more than a dozen of them on my own. They don't like the table saw, steel saw, 1 1/2hp drill press, etc. They will usually start them, but if you load them down, there goes the outlet.

I agree it would be dumb to lay on a damp floor with a power tool, but I would never think of doing it, gfi or not.

I used leviton and century.

[Byron Kinnaman]

Originally Posted by Brian B-P

Jim, a GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) protects against faults which connect the hot line (and in some cases even the neutral line) to ground. As far as I know, having no ground at all wouldn't be a problem.

OOPS you probably need to dig a bit deeper Brian.
GFI works by comparing the current in the hot leg vs the current in neutral leg. Any differences and the it trips. I'm not sure what the current difference is to cause the device to trip, but it's quite small.

[steve dunham]

A Leviton 15 amp 125 volt commercial grade , heavy duty, GFCI receptacle
(Model # 7599) is only rated for "1/2 HP" Your drill is 1 1/2 HP or 3 times the rating of the GFCI . Current rating and Horsepower rating are not the same thing . The trade rule is to take the full load current ( FLA) of the motor and double it to arrive at the size of the controlling device , IE a 1/2 HP 125 volt motor drawing 9 amps ( FLA). ( Tables Art 430 NEC) would require a 20 amp rated switch. The problem stems from a misapplication of the product (GFCI) not with the product. Shop equipment such as yours must often be wired to commercial standards not to residential standards. Most homeowners do not own large commercial power tools --stationery or portable

[steve dunham]

Originally Posted by Byron Kinnaman

OOPS you probably need to dig a bit deeper Brian.
GFI works by comparing the current in the hot leg vs the current in neutral leg. Any differences and the it trips. I'm not sure what the current difference is to cause the device to trip, but it's quite small.

The difference can be 3 ma or 5 ma or 10 ma or 20 ma . It depends on whether you are protecting someone in a coronary care unit of a hospital or protecting a heat tape in a metal gutter . There are different classes of protection Most GFCI receptacles are 5ma

[Byron Kinnaman]

Originally Posted by steve dunham

The difference can be 3 ma or 5 ma or 10 ma or 20 ma . It depends on whether you are protecting someone in a coronary care unit of a hospital or protecting a heat tape in a metal gutter . There are different classes of protection Most GFCI receptacles are 5ma

Thanks Steve. I was pretty sure it was in that range.

[RogerDat]

Just spit balling but I have a 77 Scamp and the original fluorescent light has a two prong ungrounded plug on it. Could having that on the circuit cause a problem for the GFI plug? Only thing I could plug into it was the phone charger.

It is nice to now have an explanation from an expert of why my 12" miter saw always trips my GFI by the deck. In the past I always had to go with saw was "to powerful" which did impress the younger grand kids.

[Roger C H]

Plug your rig in the non GFI plug and then plug one of these into the outlets in the Scamp:

Search Results for*receptacle tester*at The Home Depot

If this shows a fault it tells you what kind of fault and then you know where to start looking, if there is a problem with your rig.

You may want to check your house wiring with the receptacle checker before checking your rig. I find a good rule of thumb when dealing with someone else's work, is "trust, but check."

I bought one of these after reading that someone fried their rigs electrics by plugging into a miswired plug. Now, I ALWAYS check the plug before plugging my rig into it, even if I have returned to a park after a couple days. One never knows what happened in the meantime.

[Roy in TO]

Thanks for the suggestions Roger.

[Daniel A.]

If your Scamp already has a GFI you can't plug a separate GFI to it.

It sounds like this is what your doing it will trip every time as it should.

GFI's can not be plugged into each other be it your house circuits or trailer circuit's.

When I worked we had this issue with contractors showing up and plugging GFI cords into a GFI circuit it won't work.

[Jerry .]

Originally Posted by Daniel A.

If your Scamp already has a GFI you can't plug a separate GFI to it.

It sounds like this is what your doing it will trip every time as it should.

GFI's can not be plugged into each other be it your house circuits or trailer circuit's.

When I worked we had this issue with contractors showing up and plugging GFI cords into a GFI circuit it won't work.

No 2nd GFI just the camper cord and a 25ft extension cord plugged in to my home/garage outlet.

[RogerDat]

Sounds like a tester as suggested by Roger CH in post #27 at less than $10 would be the way to go.

Once you know the GFI circuit at house tests OK it is eliminated as being the problem. Indicated by other trailers being able to use that outlet but good idea to confirm.

Other trailers work on GFI outlet, this one trips, ergo something is "different" about trailer. Testing is the only way to track down the what is different.

Maybe some safety minded person replaced the circuit breaker in the trailer with GFI circuit breaker to protect all outlets, maybe a plug is badly wired. Maybe a device such as converter is causing the problem. If the trailer outlets test OK then it's time to disconnect things that are hard wired into 110 AC until plugging into house GFI does not cause a trip.

Bottom line: Unless you know the "why" you can not assess the risk. Or remedy the problem. You just know you have an unknown problem, one you can work around (use non-GFI power source) without knowing if that is dangerous.

You might choose to ignore problem or put it on a to-do list to be remedied later knowing it is not an urgent safety problem. But the knowing why is key to making that decision. So test until you find it.

[Thomas G.]

Originally Posted by Daniel A.

..........GFI's can not be plugged into each other be it your house circuits or trailer circuit's............

I'm not so sure that this is true. As an example, most bathrooms have a GFCI protected outlet next to the sink. Most new hairdryers have a GFCI device built into the cord, at the plug. Routinely, the GFCI protected hair dryer is plugged into the GFCI outlet with no issues.

[steve dunham]

Originally Posted by Thomas G.

I'm not so sure that this is true. As an example, most bathrooms have a GFCI protected outlet next to the sink. Most new hairdryers have a GFCI device built into the cord, at the plug. Routinely, the GFCI protected hair dryer is plugged into the GFCI outlet with no issues.

Thomas : You both are correct Earlier GFCIs ,when 2 were placed on the same circuit would cause cross tripping . You would hit the test button on the second GFCI and the first GFCI in the circuit would trip . (One GFCI saw the other GFCI as a fault) That problem has been pretty well eliminated . I have 2 , 125 volt- 15 amp extension cords for my trailer (15 ft & 25 FT) both of which have a WP box with a standard GFCI receptacle at one end . I plug these cords into my trailer's outside GFCI outlet or the campground's GFCI outlet without any tripping problems .

[peterh]

Quick troubleshooting steps for finding out what's causing your GFCI to trip.

1) Flip all the breakers in your trailer into the "off" position. If you don't have breakers, find all the things in your trailer that plug into a 110 circuit. (Refrigerator, your converter or battery charger, hot water heating element, and any and all plug-ins).

2) Plug your trailer in and wait a couple minutes. If the GFCI blows, the problem is in your wiring harness (or in your power converter, if you have a trailer which doesn't allow you to flip its breaker or otherwise turn it off).

3) Flip one breaker or plug in one appliance, then wait another minute. When the GFCI breaks, you have found your culprit.

Often the culprit will be a heating element, like a HottRod water heater element or the electric heating element in your refrigerator.

[Roy in TO]

Glad to have you back Peter, you always present sensible solutions.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by Byron Kinnaman

GFI works by comparing the current in the hot leg vs the current in neutral leg. Any differences and the it trips.

Nothing "consumes" charge, so the existence of a difference between hot and neutral current is evidence that some current is going to ground instead of neutral. The imbalance isn't the problem, just the detection method, used because it's not possible to directly measure leakage current through a path which shouldn't even exist; the problem is the Fault to Ground and the Circuit is Interrupted to protect the person who might be part of that path to ground.

It seems to me that a non-resistive load - anything that would cause a significantly far from unity power factor - has a good chance of confusing and falsely tripping a GFCI.

[gcssr39]

What amperage are the GFI you are plugging into, you are plugging a 30 amp demand into GFI, most are either 15 or 20 amp, if you have a amp meter clamp see what surge amp is at plug in. By the way I do believe they recommend no GFI for refrigerator. Personally I would not use a GFI for my trailer, or any outside receptacle.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by gcssr39

What amperage are the GFI you are plugging into, you are plugging a 30 amp demand into GFI, most are either 15 or 20 amp, if you have a amp meter clamp see what surge amp is at plug in.

30 amps is the capacity of the trailer's system. This has nothing to do with how much current flows when nothing is turned on.

Originally Posted by gcssr39

By the way I do believe they recommend no GFI for refrigerator.

For what kind of refrigerator? A normal home refrigerator (or freezer) is run by an electric motor, and motors can be a problem for a GFCI. A traditional RV refrigerator is an absorption-cycle system driven by a heater; I don't know why that would be a problem.

[Roger C H]

Here is what I mean by weird: My house has two bathrooms, an outside plug by the patio and two outlets in the garage. All are protected by ONE GFI breaker in the main bath. It seems strange to me that the electrician would run all that wire just to avoid using another breaker, but that is what they did.

An electical thingy will work perfectly fine if you have the neutral and not the hot line run through the switch to it But when you turn the switch off, you still have the thing having hot electricity to it and you can get a short by touching ground and the hot wire.

I heard of electricians checking if a light socket was live by sticking their finger in it. By not touching either contact, they could feel a "tingle". But this is not a good practice, especially if you are nervous, LOL.

[Joe MacDonald]

depending on the year the house was built there are several scenarios for GFI protection.
Here(ontario canada)for a while the bathroom had to have GFI protection, and had to be on a circuit with something else. Ditto for a smoke detector, had to be with a bathroom fan ( everybody needs the fan to work!!), then the smoke had to be on it's own, GFCI were expensive little buggers, and since outside plugs had to be done, it made more sense to run the wire, it was cheaper. now kitchen counters need gfci, so we put in a 20 amp gfci breaker, and T -blade plugs in the kitchen because you can't buy a split duplex gfci