GFCI not cooperating with me

Since it worked at one time, then something has changed.

Do you have a combination gas/electric water heater?

The combination gas/water heaters have an electric heating rod that goes in the tank. Those electric heating rods can over time deteriorate and cause a slight electrical leakage or if you accidentally left the heating element turned on with an empty tank they will blow out causing enough electrical leakage to play havovc with GFCIs..

Other suspicios areas are the fridge heating element provided it has a absorbsion fridge and even sometimes the A/C unit develops a small electrical leakage to safety ground..

OR it just may be a GFCI failing, not unheard of but also not all that common either. For the most part they do live long lives, I have never had to replace any in my home and those are going on 30 yrs old now and only one in my RV which was located in a outdoor outlet box (which is not ideal place for electronics)..

Do you have more than one GFCI in your RV? Kitchen, bath and outdoors need to be protected with GFCI.. If you have more than one does both trip?

Sometimes RV manufacturers can be real cheapskates and make one GFI server bath, kitchen outdoor outlets plus sometimes run the fridge on the same circuit..

Quickest and cheapest way to figure this out is if you have shore power available that you can plug into or even a generator (assuming you don't have builtin gen).

At the moment, I'm boondocking in N AZ... and yes, GFI outlets did work before. Never had this issue, so was a bit baffled... Don't know the brand Inverter I have,
it came with the MH (2017 Ventana LE)... I'll keep working on it.

Lacking a degree in electronics and electrician license, when faced with an issue with a GFI, that is not apparent with simple trouble shooting, I replace them. GFI can and do wear out or go bad. Even brand new out of the box can be faulty.

When I bought my old broken down Toyota, one of the things on the list was replace the circuit breakers and GFI.

Gdetrailer wrote:

And wa8yxm, just so you can's say that there are no MSW inverters that work with GFCI I would recommend that you take a good look at a Trpplite PV3000GFCI HERE

I did not say they do not. I said I heard that there are GFCI's that do not play nice with inverters (Did not specify which type of inverter) but I'd never met one.

But when tribble shooting the more information we have. The better. So I ask the questions.

You are correct in how GFCI's Work.

Another question I forgot to ask is about neutral bonding. I did have an issue once when I did that wrong.. My Prosine-2000 and later freddom 2000 both have the option to bond ground and neutral in INVERTER mode or in pass through only. Well I lost a screw so I connected the two safety ground leads (bare or green) together. Did not work well.. Finally fixed it per the book for the device and it worked much better.

wa8yxm wrote:
Some questions on the inverter
MSW or PSW/TSW
Does it have "load Sense" and is it on or disabled?

Some GFCI's do not like inverters. or so I'm told. never met one though.

GFCIs don't care if it is PSW or MSW, waveform has nothing to do with how a GFCI works.

And wa8yxm, just so you can's say that there are no MSW inverters that work with GFCI I would recommend that you take a good look at a Trpplite PV3000GFCI HERE for PROOF that MSW DOES work with GFCIs.



So get off the PSW high horse..

GFCI uses current transformers to check the balance of current on the hot and neutral, as long as the current is the same on both lines all is good..

If however there is more current flowing on the hot side than the neutral side, then the GFCI will trip once it exceeds the threshold which now days is 5 milliamps..

Doesn't really care what waveform it sees, just that the current is balanced.

Running an inverter which has a floating neutral can and will cause issues in a RV situation since the 120V grounding system is also bonded to the 12V DC system negative..

This can cause ground loop currents, those currents could potentially be enough to trip a GFCI..

On this type of inverter, bonding neutral to safety ground will short the 60V AC, reduce the output of the inverter to 60V until the inverter safely shuts down or just plain burns up..

Until the OP gives answers to the questions posed above, everyone is simply guessing..

Some questions on the inverter
MSW or PSW/TSW
Does it have "load Sense" and is it on or disabled?

Some GFCI's do not like inverters. or so I'm told. never met one though.

Does it work OK on Shore power?

Has it always worked while on inverter?

Is inverter new to the setup or factory installed?

Brand/model of inverter?

Did you plug shore cord into inverter outlet?

Is the inverter 120V output hard wired to your 120V system?

If you installed inverter and GFCI has never worked with the inverter then the issue most likely IS the inverter.

Most cheap inverters are designed to use a floating neutral when compared to the safety ground and will have about 60V AC on the neutral and aprox 60V on the Hot..

GFCIs don't like that and will rebel..

And most cheap inverters tend to not like the neutral connected to safety ground or the battery negative terminals which are connected to the frame of your RV..

The frame of your RV is also bonded to the safety ground of your 120V AC electrical system..

See the problem?

Did it work OK before?
And maybe something is plugged in to that circuit downstream that’s causing the ground fault.