LOR controller is tripping Gfci in the rain...

[Wonko]

Hi all - another newbie question. It’s raining today, after a week of snow on the ground. My shows have been running fine with the snow, but today I’m tripping a GFCi on both extension cords powering my LOR 16-channel controller. I’ve got each extension cord plugged into it’s own GFI, but both sides are tripping. My controller is wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag and it’s in a plastic covered bin. It doesn’t look like much or any water has gotten in, but I’m not sure. Any tips to get my show back up and running for tonight? I’ve checked all my tomato-cage trees, house plugs, and Santa connections, and they’re all out of any standing water. Not sure what to do. Any help is appreciated!

[jfuller8400]

It's probably not your controller but one (or more) of the channels coming out of the controller that's causing the trip.  You mentioned tomato cages - they are infamous for causing GFI trips.  I would start by checking to make sure all of your connections for the channels are not sitting in water (and hopefully dry).  If you want to get really detailed, you could unplug all of the channels at the controller and start plugging them in one at a time to see if you can isolate the channel that's causing the trip.  This may or may not work as sometimes it's a combination of channels that causes the trip.

I can sympathize as I usually get rain in Dec as well and it's always a challenge to keep the show running.  It's gotten to the point where I've got a bad weather show/announcement for nights where I just can't get it to run.

 

[indi]

Mine tripped last night during a rain. So I shut my whole show down. In the past I would try to point the plug ends (at the end of the strings) on my lights pointing downward. In The past, water or ice bridging across would trip my GFI. So, today I put a balloons on the ends to try to keep the water out. Hope this works. 

[Wonko]

Of course tonight I had three cars of people waiting to see the show. I had to tell them it was rained out. When I went to put up a sign, a fourth car pulled up. When the mom saw that it was rained out, she looked at me and said simply, “2020”. Exactly 🤦‍♂️

[woodinvillejohn]

jfuller8400 is spot on with his answer.  It is probably something plugged into the controller and I would look at the tomato cages to start.  When I need to narrow things down I will use the portable GFCI's available from Home depot or Amazon and plug it in between the channel plugs and extension cord leading to the  prop.  So i don't have to use 16 of them i try to narrow down the most likely channels I think might be tripping.  It can be challenging because ground faults are accumulative, so many small faults on different channels could add up to enough to cause the controller GFCI to trip.  Good house keeping  goes a long way.  Try to elevate plugs and lights off the ground whenever possible.  Try to isolate any metal frames (tomato cages) from the ground by resting on pieces of wood.  Minimize the number of strings plugged into each channel.  Good Luck.

[jtomason]

I have this problem as well.  I have enough ground leakage to trip the GFCI outlet, so I wind up splitting the show onto two circuits.  That seems to work fine.

 

 

[Wonko]

Thanks all for your help! Today is warm and dry, but I’m still tripping. I have the two sides of the controller plugged-in to two separate GFI’s on two different circuits (both with 20 amps). Can someone explain why sometimes if it trips the second GFI (channels 9-16), channels 1-8 won’t turn on either, even though they’re connected to a different GFI and circuit?

[TheDucks]

You need to find where the leakage (to ground).  GFCI basically look for unbalance between the White and black wires. It treats any about above the small  (5mA) threshold, as a fault.

And while White is neutral, you can only return power on the one paired wit the black. DO NOT put the jumper between the 2 sections unless you have converted to a single cord configuration (If you are all LED, you can probably do this with ease. 12A total is the cord/plug limit)

Channels 1-8 also is Logic power side. Is the controller coming on (the Green LED on)? Bank 1 always tripping/blowing fuse, may be a catastrophic Triac failure (the sniff test should tell if it was that bad)

Moisture (sweating inside the case) will trip a GFCI

[Steven]

Rainwater does not conduct electricity very well. It's when it gets dirty (such as a first rain) when it conducts and causes ground faults. If your props (and controller) are off the ground and can drain properly, they may stop tripping the GFCI after a heavy rain washes the dirt away.

When you have a trip, shut down the show and reset the GFCI's. Then run the hardware utility and turn on the channels one at a time. This may help you find the problem channel. When it rains here, the problem channel is the string of candlesticks (probably because when I created it in 2007(!) I used crimp butt joints instead of solder and shrink tubing). So when it rains, I unplug that one prop (4 channels) and the rest of the show goes on.

I use 4 GFCI outlets in my display. The more you can distribute the possible ground fault current, the better.

[Wonko]

Right now, both sides are working again. I’ve unplugged every channel and plugged them back in 1 by 1. Think I’ve narrowed it down to channels 12, 13, and/or 14. But when I was testing, intermittently channels 9-16 would trip a GFI, but the GFI that powers channels 1-8 would not trip, but still no lights on channels 1-8. Was wondering if they were connected inside the controller somehow. 

[k6ccc]

28 minutes ago, Wonko said:

Can someone explain why sometimes if it trips the second GFI (channels 9-16), channels 1-8 won’t turn on either, even though they’re connected to a different GFI and circuit?

Because the electronics of the controller itself are powered from the channel 9-16 bank.

 

[Wonko]

Just now, k6ccc said:

Because the electronics of the controller itself are powered from the channel 9-16 bank.

 

AH! That makes sense...thanks very much.

[Wonko]

4 minutes ago, Steven said:

When you have a trip, shut down the show and reset the GFCI's. Then run the hardware utility and turn on the channels one at a time. This may help you find the problem channel.

That’s a great tip! I’ll try that now. Thanks much...

[randyf]

Check cords too.  A nick in a cable running on the ground that is deep enough to get to the copper can also cause GFC trips

[dibblejr]

On 12/12/2020 at 3:37 PM, Wonko said:

Hi all - another newbie question. It’s raining today, after a week of snow on the ground. My shows have been running fine with the snow, but today I’m tripping a GFCi on both extension cords powering my LOR 16-channel controller. I’ve got each extension cord plugged into it’s own GFI, but both sides are tripping. My controller is wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag and it’s in a plastic covered bin. It doesn’t look like much or any water has gotten in, but I’m not sure. Any tips to get my show back up and running for tonight? I’ve checked all my tomato-cage trees, house plugs, and Santa connections, and they’re all out of any standing water. Not sure what to do. Any help is appreciated!

I still don't get why a lot of people want to wrap a watertight/ proof enclosure in plastic. We get monsoon type rains, a recent and first time ever hurricane and through it all all of my controllers come out unscathed. Even a controller that was attached to my matrix and the hurricane flipped it over and rain got in my vents, it was flooded, I figured the 2 pixies inside were gone. I left the door open for a day and after it dried out and I repaired the matrix everything worked as if nothing ever happened.

I even have some extra what i will call weep holes in some of mine at the bottom in case any condensation was to build up.

Also as stated previously the tomato cage props are problematic to help minimize the outages, place the tomato cage props on wood 4X4 or something. When I had the cage lights I would get occasional tripping but after I placed them on the wood that stopped. I also use spikes to ensure any extension cord ends are elevated off the ground.

For the 4X4 method just drill a hole on each end, spike them in to the ground and then screw and ziptie the cages.

And I would put the cages on their own breaker. That way if they go down, that is all that goes down.

JR

 

Edited December 23, 2020 by dibblejr

[TheDucks]

Mount your controllers UPRIGHT (proper W/P cases) and lose the bags. They need to breathe to be able to shed accumulated moisture (humidity).

This is from real US Navy (ETR) experience. They INCLUDE small block heaters to keep things dry in the tropics.

Leakage is CUMULATIVE. Separate GFCI (not just the outlet) for AC . For DC, the PSU has deliberate (intended) leakage from the EMI filters. That accumulates.