GFI - Kooko 4 Coco Puffs...
Well, thats about how I was feeling after days of nagging circuit by circuit GFI troubleshooting -LOL!!
When not in use the camper has been kept in a storage yard without hook-ups - until this week...We dry camp almost exclusively, and seldom require the air cond, but I recall last June while staying overnight in Sink Hole Cyn, WO. (just over 5k elevation - no hook-ups), it was warm so I did try to run the air cond, but for some reason the Honda 2000 kept tripping (??)... I carelessly wrote this off as some high altitude problem, and as the sun dropped behind the mountain ridge, the temp rapidly dropped to comfortable levels anyway, so I put the whole matter out of my mind.
Fast forward to now...
After 9 mos of construction we finally move into our new diggs, complete with a 40' attached RV garage, now WITH HOOK-UPS!! So quite naturally I plug the camper into GFI protected shore power and the garage recep instantly trips, AND the same happens regardless which GFI I try to use...However to make matters far worse, it turned out the tripping was crazy intermittent :(...
Not one to assume that two separate garage GFI's are faulty, its time to locate the dreaded RV GFI gremlin (Uck!). With two subpanels, a main, ATS switches, a Prosine 2.0, and seemingly about 5 miles (LOL!) of difficult to access (think, narrow truck camper basement...) wiring to suspect - lots of stuff to be checked out here, and ALL one by one...
Plus, lots of possibilities running through my mind as well, including the Refer and Hot Water Heater elements - yet both have their own dedicated GFI's, all appears well with those as we almost never run either on electric anyway...But part of 'the plan' is not to chance it, so I'll pull the breakers on both, and even the copper ground wires at the main! Then 'efficiently' spend my time (ended-up hours upon hours...) eliminating one suspected circuit after another. Unfortunately, this process lasted off & on for about three days to no avail (Dang!)...
Lastly, it was time to revisit the circuitry at the Main, this time by disconnecting the Neutrals one by one and trying the GFI again...Recall that the water heater was already disconnected at the breaker and the copper ground at the main (hint, hint!).
The LAST neutral I removed at the Main was for the water heater, and after all this, suddenly the garage GFI stayed put!!...What the heck??
Turns out that the WH electrode had a slight electron leakage (likely due to road borne vibration - not from usage), which when passing through the mineral rich water, eventually found its way to the RV chassis ground... This effectively made the dreaded connection between the ground and the neutral (think, ground TO neutral), setting up the dang eddy current that was the source of all my headaches! Now with the water heater electrode neutered, the garage GFI is quite well again :) !!
My Mea Culpa,
3 tons
When not in use the camper has been kept in a storage yard without hook-ups - until this week...We dry camp almost exclusively, and seldom require the air cond, but I recall last June while staying overnight in Sink Hole Cyn, WO. (just over 5k elevation - no hook-ups), it was warm so I did try to run the air cond, but for some reason the Honda 2000 kept tripping (??)... I carelessly wrote this off as some high altitude problem, and as the sun dropped behind the mountain ridge, the temp rapidly dropped to comfortable levels anyway, so I put the whole matter out of my mind.
Fast forward to now...
After 9 mos of construction we finally move into our new diggs, complete with a 40' attached RV garage, now WITH HOOK-UPS!! So quite naturally I plug the camper into GFI protected shore power and the garage recep instantly trips, AND the same happens regardless which GFI I try to use...However to make matters far worse, it turned out the tripping was crazy intermittent :(...
Not one to assume that two separate garage GFI's are faulty, its time to locate the dreaded RV GFI gremlin (Uck!). With two subpanels, a main, ATS switches, a Prosine 2.0, and seemingly about 5 miles (LOL!) of difficult to access (think, narrow truck camper basement...) wiring to suspect - lots of stuff to be checked out here, and ALL one by one...
Plus, lots of possibilities running through my mind as well, including the Refer and Hot Water Heater elements - yet both have their own dedicated GFI's, all appears well with those as we almost never run either on electric anyway...But part of 'the plan' is not to chance it, so I'll pull the breakers on both, and even the copper ground wires at the main! Then 'efficiently' spend my time (ended-up hours upon hours...) eliminating one suspected circuit after another. Unfortunately, this process lasted off & on for about three days to no avail (Dang!)...
Lastly, it was time to revisit the circuitry at the Main, this time by disconnecting the Neutrals one by one and trying the GFI again...Recall that the water heater was already disconnected at the breaker and the copper ground at the main (hint, hint!).
The LAST neutral I removed at the Main was for the water heater, and after all this, suddenly the garage GFI stayed put!!...What the heck??
Turns out that the WH electrode had a slight electron leakage (likely due to road borne vibration - not from usage), which when passing through the mineral rich water, eventually found its way to the RV chassis ground... This effectively made the dreaded connection between the ground and the neutral (think, ground TO neutral), setting up the dang eddy current that was the source of all my headaches! Now with the water heater electrode neutered, the garage GFI is quite well again :) !!
My Mea Culpa,
3 tons
