George Simmons Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 Okay, here's something a smarter mind will need to help me with. On Thursday we had a boatload of rain. Before everything froze that night there was a three or four inch deep layer of slush created underneath all the snow. As you might expect, the show failed with great panache that night - half a dozen GFCIs tripped and there was simply no reasoning with them.Last night I was able to reset all the GFCIs with one exception. It's a factory-built CTB16PC from 2008 and it controls two arches - 14 channels, each with a single string of 100 ct minis. The controller has both power cords plugged into one splitter and is the only item on a 20A circuit. (It should be noted that one channel on one of the arches went dark a couple weeks ago but everything else worked perfectly.) The HU finds the controller. If I turn on each channel one at a time everything works fine. (Except for the dark channel, of course.) If I turn on all the channels at once, the GFCI trips. I can turn on 1-8 all at the same time with no problem. But the second arch trips the GFCI as soon as power is applied to more than one channel, either through the HU or through running a sequence. I unplugged the dark channel and that had no effect. I examined the controller and it seems visually okay. The box is sealed and no rain got in. No evidence of Asian beetles or slugs. I reset the controller - no effect. I unplugged all the channels of the second arch and except for having one of eight arches dark, all else works okay. Any ideas anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis Cherry Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 A trip of a GFCI can be 1 channel or many channels that have enough current leakage to ground to finally trip the safety circuit.The GFCI monitors the current out to current being returned on the Black and White pair on the AC line, if the return current is less than the output current, you have current leakage to ground, then the breaker trips. it is only Micro amps. Also cheap GFCI's are not as reliable.You probably have ice build up on the connectors or as in wire frames, current leakage, from the wires touching the metal frame to ground. This happens when old strings of lights get wet and have micro cracks in the insulation or the wires are zip tied too tight to the frame or a combination of all.The GFCI is there to protect you or anyone that might come into your display and touches your elements in your display. Your Insurance company also likes GFCI's for this reason during law suits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 I dont know if it will help George or not. But you did cause a light bulb light up in my head. Never thought about how with LED there might be a rise in problems with GFIs due to cracks in the wire jacket due to age of strings. This might become a ever increasing problem as more and more of us switch over to LEDs. Unlike some of our fellow sequencers that use mini icans that throw them out after one or maybe two years.Thanks Dennis for raising that point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted January 1, 2011 Author Share Posted January 1, 2011 Thanks guys for the replies. In all likelihood I'll never know exactly what the cause was since most of it is now encased in ice and will remain that way until spring. The lights in question are incandescents minis but the location where the current is leaking is probably not on the arch itself, but the frozen ground/ice surrounding the power cords from the lights to the controller so there's no hope of the lights melting their way out of the problem. And yes, I did try a different GFCI circuit to check whether it might be the receptacle itself and the same thing happened.So I'll just take Jeff's advice and plug the controller into a non-GFCI outlet in the garage. Sounds like that should solve the problem. Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shubb Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 What about unplugging one string at a time and lighting the rest of the arch up?That might help locate a bad string or problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cenote Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 George, just plug in a hair dyer, and start drying your cords, if that doesn't work, do what Jeff said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted January 1, 2011 Author Share Posted January 1, 2011 Thanks guys. Tonight was the last night so I guess it's kind of a moot point now. It might forever remain a mystery, but I'm guessing Jeff's multiple leak scenario is the most likely cause. I'm happy it didn't happen three weeks ago. What the hell is it doing pouring down an inch of rain the end of December anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cenote Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 George Simmons wrote: What the hell is it doing pouring down an inch of rain the end of December anyway?Global Warming...Duh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted January 2, 2011 Author Share Posted January 2, 2011 cenote wrote: Global Warming...Duh Oops... I keep forgetting... that's something I have to keep reminding myself of as we've just endured one of the coldest Decembers on record... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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