Will GFCI work with items without equipment ground

Sam Spade wrote:
If the bowl of water it was dropped into is not grounded, then the detector likely wouldn't trip until a persons hand supplied a foreign ground....and maybe not then.

I am trying to figure out how you drop a hot GFCI outlet into a bowl of water and not touch the ground pin of the connector.

However if 5ma leaves the bowl the GFCI will trip.

Gdetrailer wrote:

Terryallan wrote:
In truth. The GFCI is NOT there to protect YOU. It is there to protect the circuits. That by doing it's job, it also protects you, is just a bonus

You have that backwards.

A CIRCUIT BREAKER OR FUSE is there to protect THE CIRCUIT (IE WIRING) from overloading which causes HEATING of the wires which eventually leads to failed insulation of the wires which eventually and ultimately leads to FIRE.
.

My point exactly.

Terryallan wrote:
In truth. The GFCI is NOT there to protect YOU. It is there to protect the circuits. That by doing it's job, it also protects you, is just a bonus

Wrong. a gfi is in fact designed to protect people not circuits. A circuit breaker is designed to protect wiring. GFI is used on circuits within 6' of a water supply and in a garage to protect people from voltage leakage in power tools.

time2roll wrote:

Sam Spade wrote:
If the bowl of water it was dropped into is not grounded, then the detector likely wouldn't trip until a persons hand supplied a foreign ground....and maybe not then.

I am trying to figure out how you drop a hot GFCI outlet into a bowl of water and not touch the ground pin of the connector.

However if 5ma leaves the bowl the GFCI will trip.

You're not dropping the outlet into the water. You are dropping the two prong corded hair dryer into the bowl of water.

while a GFCI is designed to protect you in the case of getting across hot and neutral it is NOT guaranteed to protect you. If you are well insulated from any ground path (in the house with rubber soled insulated shoes) and get across the hot and neutral ALL the current flows through you via the hot and neutral and none through any ground path. hence no GFCI trip.

Of course this is not the typical fault case but it can exist. As an example try using a outlet tester with a GFCI test button in a typical trailer hooked to a typical generator with unbonded ground and neutral. in most cases it will NOT trip any GFCI outlets. The reason is that the neutral and ground in the trailer are not bonded, nor are they bonded at the generator, and the trailer sits on rubber tires generator sits outside with plastic high insulation resistance between the neutral or ground and earth grounde hence limited or no ground path. same as if you got across hot and neutral in the trailer.

A outlet based GFCI provide NO overcurrent protection just current imbalance protection. It relies on an upstream CB for overecurrent protection, a Circuit breaker GFCI will provide overcurrent protection and current imbalance protection.

Now a GFCI will also detect and trip on one other fault. A downstream ground/neutral bond. By code ground and neutral are not to be connected together anywhere but the main breaker panel. so if ground and neutral are bonded downstream of the GFCI it will detect this short and will trip. This will occur even if there is no current flowing in the circuit.

Terryallan wrote:
In truth. The GFCI is NOT there to protect YOU. It is there to protect the circuits. That by doing it's job, it also protects you, is just a bonus

False. The only reason to have a GFI is to protect people. But still not good to depend on them

Will it work: Perfectly
Does the GFCI care. On some of 'em the safety ground is not even connected.

All this brings up another related topic. I know I'm wavering.

My RV is in a storage lot where a, low potential, outlet is supplied for each camper. An AC unit or electric water heater will immediately trip the main.

We, pretty much, only plug up to keep batteries charged. Nobody loads anything of consequence on the inverter or 12 volt system.

Every motorhome owner I talk with seems to have a persistent problem with the GFCI's tripping. The only thing we all have in common is that we all have an inverter. Mine is a 1500 watt Xantrex PSW.

Is there something inherent with motorhomes that could cause this? I know the 15 amp connections an campgrounds are GFCI, but I doubt they are used by motorhomes.

Terryallan wrote:
In truth. The GFCI is NOT there to protect YOU. It is there to protect the circuits. That by doing it's job, it also protects you, is just a bonus

Absolutely wrong.
Most of the devices don't care where the current goes OUTSIDE the working parts of the device.
Human beings certainly care though.
GFCI is a safety device. Circuit breakers are equipment protection.

mikestock wrote:
All this brings up another related topic. I know I'm wavering.

My RV is in a storage lot where a, low potential, outlet is supplied for each camper. An AC unit or electric water heater will immediately trip the main.

We, pretty much, only plug up to keep batteries charged. Nobody loads anything of consequence on the inverter or 12 volt system.

Every motorhome owner I talk with seems to have a persistent problem with the GFCI's tripping. The only thing we all have in common is that we all have an inverter. Mine is a 1500 watt Xantrex PSW.

Is there something inherent with motorhomes that could cause this? I know the 15 amp connections an campgrounds are GFCI, but I doubt they are used by motorhomes.

Read ktmrfs post above (very good post) and note the last paragraph. If the inverter has the neutral/ ground bonded and its transfer switch defaults to the inverter, before the switch can transfer the gfi will pick up a neutral to ground fault and trips. This use to be a problem years ago but I thought the inverter manufactures had solved it, but maybe not. It could also be the inverters were not installed properly.

Sam