GFCI tripping issue

[wlcarr]

Hi guys ... 73 year-old "newbie" here ... first season ... mostly having fun, but with one issue that is "testing my sanity".

These forums have been invaluable to me in setting up my display.  Thanks for all the great advice you've provided.  I hope you can provide some useful tips on my issue.

I've reviewed other topics on GFCI issues, but none seem to cover my issue.

 

I have a Christmas "show" with 6 songs that lasts about 22 minutes followed by an 8-minute "intermission" ... so the show repeats in 30 minute cycles.

The show runs PERFECTLY for the first couple of cycles, then the GFCI circuit breaker begins tripping on the circuit running my LOR Controller.  Sometimes this happens on the third cycle, but usually always by the 4th cycle, and later.

 

I'm running a "megatree" with 12 "rays" of 50 LED Pixels each  (using a non-LOR 12-volt controller) and one LOR controller running channels 1-6 for a SuperStar and channels 9-14 for 3 Incandescent strings and 3 LED strings on features in the front yard.  These 6 features are sync'ed with the music ... so they ramp up and down, frequently.  Every outdoor extension cord (16 gauge - 13 amp rated, or better) out of the LOR controller is protected by a "Twist and Seal" "torpedo", and are staying very dry.

 

On one "excessive tripping" occasion, I removed the 6 feature connections from the LOR controller, and plugged them into a 6 outlet timer I have, and ran the show successfully through all half hour cycles, but obviously without them being sync'ed with the music (very boring).  So the load on the circuit was about the same, although constant, and not ramping up and down.

 

My house is only 5 years old, and the two GFCI circuits I'm using are both listed as 15 amp.  I've used a "Kill-A-Watt" meter to check each circuit to see if I'm overstressing them, but the amperage doesn't appear to exceed 5-6 amps on either circuit ... less than half their rated capacity.

 

I don't even know where to begin troubleshooting this issue ... since everything works fine for the first few cycles, then falls apart.

What could be happening?  Where do I begin troubleshooting?

[LORisAwesome]

Is it a GFCI circuit breaker, or a GFCI outlet?

If it is a GFCI circuit breaker, it may not be a GF trip, but a short or overload. It is hard to tell with a breaker.

Is there anything else on that circuit that may be running by the fourth cycle causing an overload? See what else is going on in your household when it trips.

Jerry

[wlcarr]

Thanks for your response Jerry.

 

I have two GFCI circuits (breakers, not outlets) with multiple outside outlets.  One that covers my one-car garage (but not the garage door) and the outside outlets at the rear of the house.  And, another that covers my two-car garage (but not the garage door) and outside outlets at the front of the house. None of the other GFCI outlets are in use. 

 

However, I have run a 100' heavy duty extension cord from an outlet at the back of the house to the front, and the LOR controller is on that circuit ... the length of that cord is suspect, but everything seems to work fine when I just have the lights on that circuit, without the LOR controller.  It's the only way I can use both GFCI circuits for my display.  (I tried using only the GFCI outlets at the front of the house (just one GFCI circuit), but that also blew the circuit breaker ... at about the same place in my show.

 

I ran a test last night by dropping the intensity of the 6 feature connections (channels 9-14) to 60% ... but the circuit breaker tripped on the 4th cycle.

For tonight's run, I've dropped the intensity to 50%, and removed most of the music synchronization ... just to see if the show will run the full schedule without tripping the circuit breaker.

The show won't be as interesting, but right now I'm trying to get through the night.

 

My next step, I guess, is to call in an electrician and have the circuits (and breakers) checked.

I have no idea how to troubleshoot the LOR controller, at this point.  Besides it works fine for the first couple of cycles ...

 

Wayne

[LORisAwesome]

You can get a GFCI converter at Home Depot. Something like this. http://www.homedepot.com/p/Defiant-Plug-In-GFCI-Adapter-3-Wire-Grounding-30339036/203741464

 

Basically you plug it into a regular outlet, then plug the load into the converter. Maybe if you get one of these and tried on a circuit that is not connected to the GFCI breaker. At least you will be able to tell if it is a GFCI tripping or the breaker tripping.

Also does your extension cord run through a wet area? If it is the GFCI tripping I would expect some kind of water involved.

Jerry

[LORisAwesome]

I'm told that a GFCI measures the amount of power going out and compares it to what is coming back. If these values are not the same, it trips.

Any metal prop that has lights on it and is in contact with the ground may be suspect. Also GFCI trips tend to happen more when the ground is wet.

Has it been raining, or is the ground wet when you are having these issues?

Jerry

Edited December 8, 2015 by LORisAwesome

[k6ccc]

I'm told that a GFCI measures the amount of power going out and compares it what is coming back on. If these values are not the same, it trips.

 

 

Jerry,  That is correct about how a GFCI works.  And it doesn't take much of a difference.

 

BTW, a GFCI will work just fine on a 2 wire circuit (it does NOT need a ground connection).

[wmilkie]

"A GFCI does not need a ground wire in order to trip properly. A GFCI simply trips when a fault is detected on the neutral wire.

[Rayburn]

Wayne,

 

Do you have both sides of your LOR controller plugged into the same extension cord or GFCI circuit?  You may try splitting them, putting channels 1-8 on one GFCI and 9-16 on a different GFCI.

 

Rayburn.

[mpha9c]

Sounds like the breaker is tripping due to an element... When it's wet outside I have 2 trees causing the my tripping. I believe I have identified the 2 culprits... Is it only tripping when you plug the LOR controller in? If so I would narrow down to what element or channel is causing the problem, by disconnecting it. If it's a metal element it could be shorting the circuit.

If it's tripping due to over loading the circuit, I would plug it in to a differnt circuit for testing to help identify the culprit.

[gmacw]

[quote (I tried using only the GFCI outlets at the front of the house (just one GFCI circuit), but that also blew the circuit breaker ... at about the same place in my show

 

/quote]

Maybe I read this wrong but are saying you have GFCI outlets connected to a GFCI circuit breaker! If so that may be your problem as two GFCI's on same line would trip

[copotay]

WLcarr, down here in southern Louisiana and had the same problem last year. What I was explained, by someone here on the forum, that as the channels illuminate its obviously sending power to each strand. There could be leakage from one or more strands which adds up. I noticed mine was fine until, during the sequence, I would have all lights go on then it would trip, but individually, or not all strands getting power, did it trip. I was able to make a sequence of just sold static on so I could track the problem. Well I have several wire frame deer that were touching the ground along with some mini trees pressed into the ground. Also there was no cuts or nicks in the wires. If I had two of my minis plugged in and two deer it would not trip, but when I turned them all on it would trip. So to solve this problem I ungrounded all the wire frames by using pieces of pvc pipe and pieces of fiberglass warning stakes you get from Lowes that are orange, to keep the metal frames off of the ground and pallets to sit the deer on keeping them off the ground. It worked!!!!!

 

Now for the bad news, my show has ran great so far this year but as of right now if anyone is watching the weather, we down here in Louisiana are getting a huge amount of humidity pumped out of the gulf meeting the approaching storm system, no rain just 100 % humidity. Well last night started the show as normal the ground and wires were dry and about two hours after dark it shut off. So tried to start it again, it did the same thing once it reached a certain segment where in the show all the lights are on and it killed. It ran fine for the last few weeks, but we did not have a large amount of humidity/fog. Sure enough as I was checking my strands they were all dripping wet, and I mean water dropping off of them, along with the ground being extremely wet, remember no rain just humidity like pea soup. I even tried using my leaf blower on all the connections drying them up but the trees and ground were all still wet and it would not stay on. Plugged into a different circuit and it would still do it. I have wall GFCIs outside but also use an inline GFCI extension as spoken of above. Tried with and without but it would still trip. The inline plugged before the wall gfci would trip then I skipped the inline and went directly to the wall and that tripped. I currently waiting for the sun and wind to dry everything including the ground so I can try it today. LOR does not like any type of dampness to run. And I only have 16 channels.

Edited December 11, 2015 by copotay

[wlcarr]

Hi Guys, and THANKS so much for all the input.

 

To answer your questions,

To RAYBURN:

I've connected the LOR Controller both ways ... both plugs on one circuit, and split between circuits ... with the same result.  However, I have a SuperStar (LEDs) on channels 1-6 ... the other yard elements (combinations of Incandescent and (mostly) LEDs) are on 9-14.  It seems to be the 9-14 side that always trips the circuit breaker.  I'm going to split them up again ... see my note at the bottom of this post.

 

To JERRY, and MPHA9C:

I do have one element that is constructed of wire, and is sitting on the ground and zip tied to a small tree (a snowman, about 7 years old).  Could be the culprit ... and also uses .92 amps when 100% on).  I'll disconnect him from the sequence and see what happens. 

 

To GMACW:

I have two, independent, 15A GFCI circuit breaker controlled circuits for the outside outlets on my house ... 1) for a 1 car garage, and outlets (3) at the rear of the house and 2) for a 2 car garage and the outlets (2) in front of the house.  I'm using one outlet from each circuit for my display.  No other exterior GFCI outlets are in use.  (I had the LOR Controller running from the back of the house, using a 100' 12 gauge extension cord (lying along side the West side of the house, but switched it to the front outlets (under a covered porch) using a 50' 12 gauge cord.  I got an extra 30 minute cycle after that move, but still had the tripping problem ... only later in the evening.

 

To JERRY, and COPOTAY:

We had a bunch of rain around Thanksgiving, and the ground got pretty saturated here in Raleigh, NC.  But, it's been mostly dry since I set up my display ... except for a few days with evening and early morning fog.  Otherwise, humidity has been around 45%.  I have waterproof connectors on the SuperStar and the MegaTree LED Pixels, and Twist & Seal "Torpedos" on all the 120v connections.  Most of the wires are laying on the ground, but I've wrapped the connectors in plastic sheeting where exposed to the elements.

 

Final Thoughts:

I was as a Christmas party on Wednesday night, and met an Electrical Engineer who showed a lot of interest in both my display and the GFCI problem.  He's volunteered to come by my home tonight, or tomorrow and bring some of his troubleshooting equipment.  I've only got a "Kill-A-Watt" unit, and have been using it to measure amperage trying to balance the load. 

 

Thinking about moving the SuperStar side of the LOR Controller onto the circuit that handles all my MegaTree LED Pixels ... although I'm already pretty sure the problem is somewhere with the other side (feature side) of the LOR Controller).  That would put Controller channels 9-16 on a circuit all by itself. 

 

Does anyone know if a TRIAC can heat up and fail after a time period, only to be back to normal after a cool down period?  (Seem Reasonable?)

 

Thanks again, guys for taking this newbie under your "wing" ... your interest, in helping me resolve this issue is INSPIRING.

[k6ccc]

Generally no. If a triac fails, it fails.  It can fail 50% as well (I can explain that if desired).

[wlcarr]

I've been mulling this issue over today, and believe that the problem has to be in the LOR Controller ... and not the wet ground, or metal structures touching the ground. 

When my display has been failing due to the GFCI tripping, and tripping, and tripping; I've just shut the whole thing down for the night, and moved all the yard features to a Stanley 6 outlet sensor/timer (I've had for years) ... just to keep some lights on in the yard.  And everything works perfectly ... that is, all six of the yard features go on, and stay on, for hours and hours..

So if the GFCI breaker doesn't trip while all the lights are on at 100% using the timer, it has to be something with the Controller causing the issue.

Of course, the lights are on steady with the timer, and they're ramping up and down using the controller ... which could be a factor in the issue.

Does my reasoning make any sense?

I've still disconnected one major current eater, out of the system for tonight, and we'll see what happens ... maybe this .92A feature might just be enough to make a difference.

Wayne

[Rayburn]

Personally, I think it may be a loading problem on your circuits and not a ground problem.  You say your breakers are 15 amp.  That probably means you have 14 gauge house wiring on those circuits.  5 to 6 amps on a 14 gauge wire over time is a pretty good load.  It wouldn't surprise me if you are causing a heating of the circuit breaker in the first couple of cycles enough to cause in-rush currents of the 3rd or 4th cycles to trip your breaker.

 

Things I would try:

 

1.  Put half your controller on the rear GFCI and the other half on the front GCFI. (It sounds like that you may be trying that already.) Depending on the results, I would then reverse circuits.

 

2.  If you have any 20 amps receptacle circuits, I would get a GCFI adpater as Jerry suggested and try powering the problem circuits on the 20 amp circuit.

[wlcarr]

AT LAST SUCCESS !!!  I spent most of last Saturday (beautiful 70+ degree weather here in Raleigh) trying various circuit configurations, and determined that the GFCI breaker tripped as a result of something on the Channels 1-8 side of the LOR Controller ... 1-6 of which run my SuperStar.  The problem was not with the Channels 9-16 side, which is the assumption I had been making due to the higher amperage on that side (although still less than 5 amps).

Then I remembered something that Jerry and Cotopay said about features with that had metal contacting the ground.  My SuperStar sits atop a 10', 1.5" EMT Conduit, which sits in a wooden pole support ... it doesn't have any contact with the ground ... BUT, there are three guy wires attached to the pole that are attached to anchors screwed into the ground.   And the 6 extension cords from the LOR Controller to the SuperStar were strapped directly to the pole for almost the entire length. 

 

So, I disconnected the cords and strapped rubber insulating strips to the pole, then strapped the cords over the rubber insulation.  Voile ... My entire 5 hour program has run flawlessly for 3 full nights, without the GCFI circuit breaker tripping even once.

 

I still can't come up with a logical explanation why my program would run through several 1/2 hour cycles with no problem then start tripping the GCFI circuit breaker over and over.  But, I'm not going to dwell on that, as long as the show goes on.

Thanks again for your assistance and advice ... it was very helpful in creating a process for tracking down the issue, and resulted in an easy (if somewhat perplexing) solution.

I consider this topic closed.

[Ed K]

I'm only putting my 2 cents in here (maybe, just 1 cent), but how does a metal fixture carrying fully insulated lights, cause a GFCI trip?  Only the light string/device actually plugged into the GFCI receptacle could cause the trip, not the actual metal structure.  

 

Ed 

[k6ccc]

I'm only putting my 2 cents in here (maybe, just 1 cent), but how does a metal fixture carrying fully insulated lights, cause a GFCI trip?  Only the light string/device actually plugged into the GFCI receptacle could cause the trip, not the actual metal structure.  

 

Ed 

 

Well, Ed, here's how that works.  Every time two electrical conductors come close to each other, they form a capacitor.  How large they are, how far apart they are, and what is in between them determines how large of a capacitor.  AC power will pass through a capacitor - how well is determined by the value of the capacitor, and the voltage and frequency across it.  So, when a light string is wrapped around a metal tomato cage, every place the wire is wrapped around the metal, there is a small capacitor that can pass AC power from the wire to the tomato cage.  Our 60 Hz power is a very low frequency and the capacitors formed between the wires and the cage are very small, but there are a lot of them, and they add up.  For the purpose of this example, let's say that every place that the wire is wrapped around the cage results in one microamp (1 uA) of leakage current passes to the cage.  But on each tomato cage let's say there are 200 such little time capacitors - hence 200 uA of current.  That is not enough to trip a GFCI, but now add in another dozen mini trees made of tomato cages, a few wire frame raindeers, and all of a sudden the leakage current is enough that the GFCI will trip.  Throw in some moisture, and it gets worse.  Troubleshooting something like this is hard because there is no one thing that causes the GFCI to trip.

 

BTW, insulating the tomato cages and wire frames from ground, will likely keep the GFCI from tripping, but it does leave the wire frame very slightly hot.  The other problem is if at one of those locations, the insulation wears through over time and now shorts to the metal frame, the metal frame will no longer be slightly hot, it will flat out be energized and floating at 120V - and you won't know it until someone grounded touches it.  Then you better hope your GFCI does it's job.

[Ed K]

Jim,

 

Well, this clearly shows that I'm not an electrician, nor do I understand electricity.  Thanks for the education.  Your description summarized:  Lots of very small capacitors are created by some Christmas light fixtures, and the amps add up.

 

When will someone please make plastic (HDPE or PVC) tomato cages?

 

 

Thanks, Jim.

 

 

Ed

[wlcarr]

I thought it might be advisable to provide an update on my issue.

After I considered the GCFI Tripping issue closed (see my previous post), my display ran flawlessly for 5 nights ... then we had a soaking rain, and the problem started again.

I spent a full day troubleshooting the issue and once again determined that the issue was centered in channels 1-8 of the LOR Controller, which was running my SuperStar (channels 1-6).

So, I isolated the star (disconnected it from the controller), and the GCFI breaker tripped on 4 out of the 6 star circuits.  I opened the "waterproof" connectors on those 4 circuits, and they were completely full of water.  The connectors on the two circuits that worked were "mostly" dry.

 

So, I completely removed the "waterproof" connectors and just connected the extension cords coming from the controller to the wires coming from the SuperStar using "Wire Nuts"; then oriented them pointing up and covered them with a heavy plastic bag.  I haven't had a single GCFI trip incident since ... and it's rained almost every night.

 

I had suspected the connectors earlier, and had covered both ends (where the wires enter) with silicone sealant, but that apparently didn't work. 

The wire nuts solution was easy, cheap, removable, and completely reliable (at least for the past 2 weeks.

Just thought I'd pass this along in case anyone else has the same issue.

Apparently "waterproof" means something different to the manufacturer in Taiwan.

 

Hope you all had a great holiday lights season.

 

Wayne