Why a GFI HERE ?
Since there's allot of electricians here I figured I would pose this question: Yes I know what a GFI is and am very familiar with their operation. I just bought a really small pressure washer to keep...
Forum Discussion
BB_TX wrote:X2 on that. That pressure washer is just a 2-wire device that doesn't use the safety ground. All of the hair dryer GFCIs I've seen are also ground-less. As for why it trips with the genset, that's hard to say. The prior comment about the GFCI maybe not liking the genset's waveform is as good a working theory as any. Like so many other things, the GFCIs have a lot of circuitry crammed into a chip, and it might for some reason be intolerant of a flawed sine wave.
Since there is no 3rd wire, there is no ground in the circuit at all.
As for why it's there, it was a safety and/or political decision. AFAIK, all current production plug-in pressure washers have them.
