LOR Show blowing GFCI

[Guest guest]

Joseph Ayo wrote:

jmccorm wrote:

Someone should invent a GFCI sensitivity meter. Something you can plug a circuit into and get a readout that would tell you how likely it is to trip a GFCI circuit.

How can it tell the difference between 2 amps shocking the apple tree or 2 amps shocking a person?

I should probably clarify that.

The GFCI sensitivity meter is.... a meter. That is human readable, to be manually plugged into a circuit. It would give you a reading of some sort which would show you the imbalance in a circuit. So, I could plug it into my sets of lights, one by one, and see which one(s) are the ones causing GFCI issues. Assuming, of course, it would be possible to make such a meter that would be more sensitive than the GFCI protection in a circuit.

Perhaps anothert side of the meter could slowly create an imbalance to determine the point at which a GFCI circuit would trip.

[Guest guest]

Joseph Ayo wrote:

jmccorm wrote:

DanV wrote:

Update: I was able to put landscaping plastic under my trees to solve the problem for this year.

One lite shy: thanks for the info on the 3m stuff. I'll have to look into that for next year!

Someone should invent a GFCI sensitivity meter. Something you can plug a circuit into and get a readout that would tell you how likely it is to trip a GFCI circuit.

How can it tell the difference between 2 amps shocking the apple tree or 2 amps shocking a person?

Here is a little bit about GFCI's and how they work. In your electrical wiring, you have a hot lead (black) and a neutral (white) that carry the electrical current. There is also a green wire which is connected to earth in the electrical panel and is used to "ground" metallic parts of a plugged in device. The neutral is also connected to earth ground at the electrical service panel.

In a normal plugged in device, all electric current should flow out the hot line and all should return through the neutral line. The GFCI measures the electrical fields around both wires and because they have equal current flows in opposite directions the fields cancel out each other. If for some reason the current returns to "earth" not through the white neutral lead, the imbalance is detected and the GFCI trips. It was determined that a current under 10 milliamps (10/1000 of an amp) is enough to stop your heart. So GFCI's must trip if they see an imbalance of 6 milliamps. The trip window is normally 4 to 6 milliamps.

What is happening is that somewhere in the lights there is a leakage path (maybe more than one) that is sending current directly to earth, bypassing the neutral return wire. Once it gets above that magical trip point, the GFCI cuts the power off. It's there for a pretty good reason - to save your life should you accidentally come in contact with a hot electrical lead. It only takes a small fraction of an amp to stop your heart.

So look for any connections that may be in direct contact with earth, or are touching things like gutters that may be metal and provide a path to ground. Remember water contaminated with road salt makes a great electrical conductor. Sometimes just reversing the plugs of your lights (if they are non-polarized) will do the trick.

Hope this helps.

Mike

[Guest guest]

Wow! I understand what GFIs do do(hence the reason I put plastic under my mini-trees) but I don't think I could have described it to others as well as you did. Well said Mike!

[Guest guest]

MichaelC wrote:

BTW - ASIDE.... What genious invented ceramic fuses? You can't tell if they are blown unless you put a meter across them!!!!!

On the spots, you are supposed to never turn them facing up. You face them down or sideways, wetter to accommodate them this way or figure out a way to do this.

On the ceramic fuses, 9 out of 10 times they turn brown when bad on me, but maybe because this a warmer climate. I notice on coldest nights they are very hard to tell.

[Guest guest]

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.

jeff

[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.