LOR Show blowing GFCI

[Guest guest]

jeffmill wrote:

Joseph Ayo wrote:

Electrical tape can backfire and water penetrates and then tape allows it to fill up like a bucket in the connection.

Joe,

This is so true. I taped nothing this year and only had 2 trips due to someone walking into my display and taking something. My neighbor taped everything and couldn't keep his lights on. He came across the street and asked what I thought his problem was. I took a razor knife and cut all the tape off and water poured out of the connections.

I would be interested in this GFCI meter, sounds like a good idea. Before show season when yard is getting set up, I run sprinklers or take advantage of rain in November to test and trace problem GFCI circuits.

Interesting is, one year I strung an array of 50 powered up extension cords, pig tails out in the yard powered but no lights or anything plugged into the ends, in both heavy rain or sprinklers running, outdoor cords powered on high ground- even laying on the ground - ZERO trips of GFCI. Put a couple indoor cords with 3 non-grounded outlets on end, laying on ground - gfci does trip. Take same indoor cord stake up above ground, no more trips again. With avoiding indoor cords, my own experients showed to me that the cords themselves NEVER trip the GFCI's, problems are 100% in the light strings themselves.

Outdoor cords are designed not to hold or harbor water, they drain and dont trip, so leave the electrical tape off, you dont need to fix something that aint broke. What is broke is the light strings leak power and we need to focus on that. Use drip loops, raise connections above ground - priority number one: fix all darkened and/or broken bulbs on strings. Get strings off ground, string strings in such a way to make minimal contact with any surfaces - hand and suspend horizontally as much as possible, that is the least likely way to have light strings trip GFCI's.

Most likely way to trip GFCI's - wrap lights around bark of trees. These circuits are so likely to trip GFCI's keep in mind possibility of deleting these particular strings during rain and find way of running show without these lighted trees. Also Icicle lights subject to getting run off from roof over them - also no good.

[Guest guest]

Joseph Ayo wrote:

A spraying of WD 40 sometimes helps problem items as WD40 is not conductive directly and will cause water to "bead away" from the sprayed area, kind of like rain-x on a windshield.

Excellent idea.

WD-40 wasn't originally intended to be a lubricant or a penetrant. The WD stands for Water Displacement. I use WD-40 and dielectric silicone all over the boats that I work on to keep the electrical connections clean.

http://www.snopes.com/business/names/wd40.asp

[Guest guest]

I had forgotten about that, we used WD-40 on our high-voltage side of car's electrical system and inside the distributor cap, especially the old flat-head Fords & VWs to keep water out.

I have a new tool for next Christmas, thanks.