GFI & storms

[Palytoxinhallucinations]

So is it a gfci or an arc fault? These are not the same thing... If you installed a gfi receptacle on a circuit protected by an arc fault breaker it could do weird things

[Palytoxinhallucinations]

Nevermind read your last post more carefully and it's the circuit with a regular breaker and gfi receptacle you're having issues with so toss the gfi and install a new one, faulty ones are quite common

[Doug]

Just as a point of fact. My breakers are GRI/Arc fault combined. Those are code in new homes now for bedrooms and bathrooms. I once posted a picture for someone that said there was no such creature.

Yes, I,m thinking its just a bad gfi. To bad as its brand new. Sigh, like most everything else one buys, its junk.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Doug

Yes, I,m thinking its just a bad gfi. To bad as its brand new. Sigh, like most everything else one buys, its junk.

if you got it at home depot just take it back and tell em its duff and you want to exchange it for one that works.

one thing to check first is that it is all hooked up properly. ie, wired to proper termanals, not the load ones. I had to redo 3 that a electrition put in because he wired them wrong one was to control the outside outlets so he installed the gfi in the back yard with the main power going into the load, then he installed the front yard plug to the source and couldn't figure out why my front yard outlet wouldnt work and the breaker kept tripping. when I saw him trying to figure out the problem I kicked him out and went and double checked everything he did. needless to say I pull home owner permits now as it is cheeper and I know it is done right.

Steve

[Skimmerking]

I believe, but don't quote me that in order for the GFI to work its got to be grounded too right.

[Doug]

Its grounded Mike, same as the receptacle I removed was.

Connected to the correct terminals Steve. The load terminals or whatever they are called, are red flagged as just that. The box only has the one dedicated wires, as it was put in just for the system. Unlike the rest of my house. Tried to put a ceiling fan in where my ceiling light is. Sheez, so many wires in there I need an electrician to figure it out.

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by asmodeus

I believe, but don't quote me that in order for the GFI to work its got to be grounded too right.

Negative, as in no. GFI devices only need the hot (black or red) and neutral (white) to do their thing. While all newer homes (circa post 1950s) are wired with hot, neutral and ground, homes built in the 50s and earlier do not necessarily have the ground wire. I still have several wire runs with ungrounded cables in my place. Purchased the BC edition of the 'Electrical Code Simplified' published by PS Knight some time ago and it states in there somewhere that one way to make an ungrounded circuit safer is to install a GFI in that circuit. The GFI does not care if the load imbalance required to trip it is caused by current leak to the ground in a circuit or through another object (you) and ground through your arm, body, leg, to that wet floor you're standing on.

Doug, I'd be interested in finding out more about this combined ARC fault/GFI breaker you have. I've never heard of these either. Can you post another link or photo? Must have cost a few bucks and use a bit of space in the panel. I managed to snag a couple of 3-wire ARC fault breakers on eBay some time ago and they're monsters, although you can wire two circuits with them since they can acommodate two hot wires. Code book says you can't use them for a 3 wire circuit but they're clearly designed to do just that. I reckon the code needs to catch up with the newer devices and I've installed one of them anyway.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Doug

In all my years of using GFI ,s on my tanks, never had this problem before. Apparently we are in the middle of monsoon season here. During one of the storms today, lightning I guess, created a brief power down. Computer, aquarium,etc. It was only like a sec.

Power back but I noticed my sump, return and skimmer not restarting. MP 20,s running, as they are on another GFI/arc fault circuit. I find the GFI tripped on the above mentioned circuit. Reset it and everythings fine.

However, of course that scenario is no good if no body around to reset. So I ask. What the &&&^%$. Does this mean I have a problem with that wall GFI I installed, as opposed to the GFI/arc fault in the breaker panel?

I was thinking about this and let me see if I have this right. you have a arc fault breaker in the power pannel then you put a GFI plugin which you plug your stuff into. right?

If this is the case it will keep randomly tripping, as the arc fault and the gfi with kinda get confused and argue with each other. this was a common problem when they introduced arc fault to places that also had a requirment for GFI. take a dinning room for eg, commonly they were run on the same circut as kitchens and because there were gfi instaled on that circut by the sink when they installed the arc breaker in the pannel it would cause nusence tripping. so now they have to run a seperat arc fault circut for the dinning room.

I did some more reading there is a combo GFIC/AFIC breaker made by cuttler hammer, but they are expensive, and a waist of money for most aplications.

Steve

[Doug]

I have a separate GFCI which was installed just for my tank, with a spearate 15amp breaker in the panel. I run my controller on it, which runs the lights, heater, etc.

My place also has GFCI/AFI, in some rooms, the room my tank is in being one. Those breakers are code here in new homes for some rooms, I think bedrooms. My tank/office is in what would have been a small 3rd bedroom.

The arc faults are very sensitive, and I would not run all my equipment on them, plus as mentioned they dont fire halides.



I copied that from another thread Steve. I will be darned if I know where the pic of it is.

They are not the same circuit. All the bedrooms and bathrooms in my house have GFI/arc fault breakers in the panel. The GFI I,m having problems with is a completely separate circuit, installed just for the tank. It has its own regular 15 amp breaker.

Also as I said, part of my tank runs on the standard GFI circuit and part runs on the GFI/arc fault circuit, which are completely different plug ins.

[Lampshade]

Well... there's another option too. GFCI's trip based on detecting trickle currents. They operate in 20-40 milliseconds. That is EXTREAMLY fast, 1 cycle is 16ms. A typical distribution circuit breaker operates in 2-20 cycles(depending on magnitude of the fault). and faults far down a line are generally co-ordinated to clear a fuse or a recloser first, which may take 2-3 cycles. This is still longer than the GFCI.

Pretty much, you may have had phase to ground fault in your area, raising the ground potential enough for your GFCI to pick it up. the GFCI will operate before the fault is cleared by your power company's protection.