Thread: Stray votlage
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Old 12-29-2010, 01:38 AM
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mike31154 mike31154 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Seafan View Post
I'm confused by this. I had a small powerhead that was causing me to get a small shock every time I put my hands in the water, it was plugged into a gfci as was everything else in the tank, yet the gfci was not tripping. At the time I did not know which device was causing the shock. We picked up a grounding probe and it instantly tripped the circuit. Had to use a process of elimination to determine the faulty device. So until the grounding probe was in the tank the gfci wasn't ever going to trip to warn of an issue or possible harm. So my question is how do you know when a gfci is going to function properly to possibly save your life? For now I will trust my probe.
There are no absolute foolproof guarantees, even GFCI devices can fail or be faulty and everyone's wiring situation is a little different. You say you received a small shock, perhaps it was insufficient to trip the device. Not really sure why or how in your situation, adding the grounding probe suddenly caused the GFCI to trip. They are sensitive devices designed to operate on a very low amperage current differential between line and neutral.

I've had the GFCI trip on occasion simply from plugging in a small powerhead or air pump. Once the device is plugged in and I reset the GFCI, it's fine. I also have a T5HO set up on a digital timer power bar consistently tripping my GFCI. I have two of these set ups that are identical, same power bar, same ballast, same lamps. One trips the GFCI, the other doesn't. I simply don't use the set that trips the device any longer even though there's no indication of a safety issue.
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Last edited by mike31154; 12-29-2010 at 01:42 AM.
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