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William52

William52

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 17, 2015
Posts
928
Location
Florida 6 Months winter.
For some reason when I plug in shore power 20 amp it trips the ground fault at my sisters home. I have tried many cords and a new adapter but on the 30 amp plug no problem. When I get to a different site going to recheck. Puzzled  Thanks all...
 
Turn all breakers off and try it, should work. Then turn them on one at a time until it triggers. Usual suspects include: the power cord, refrigerator, water heater, outside plug wet, or a short somewhere. It will trip on about 0.006 A so even a single strand shorted will do it.

Good luck,

Ernie
 
Do what Ernie said I found with mine that it was the converter when it was replaced they hooked up the neutral to the ground bar instead of the neutral bar. These are the same only in main panels which a rv panel is not.

A 30a rv plug is not normally protected by GFCI.
 
glen54737 said:
Do what Ernie said I found with mine that it was the converter when it was replaced they hooked up the neutral to the ground bar instead of the neutral bar. These are the same only in main panels which a rv panel is not.

A 30a rv plug is not normally protected by GFCI.
Click to expand...
  Was not doing it before the floor was installed(suspect the workers who install floors over loaded a plug?) and the converter has not been touched New cords and adapter The ground fault in RV ok, House GFI tripping...
 
This is, apparently, a common problem and that may be caused by the electric heater elements in the fridge or water heater. The usual solution is to NOT use a GFCI protected circuit for feeding an RV as you are doing. However, this can be difficult as it is your sister's home and because the only plugs you may have access to are outdoors which are supposed to be GFCI protected according to the electric codes. You might try forcing the fridge to gas by turning off "Auto" operation as well as the water heater before plugging in and see if the problem goes away. You might first try turning off the c/b's in the RV that supply these two items and see if it affects it as well.
 
I have seen that. Many RV's have an issue with GFCI's. Some times it is the converter (Some trip when charging, others when the batteries are full)  In all cases you need to track it down

Most 30 amp outlets are NOT GFCI protected so no tribble...  Though I've been in a few places where they were.
 
Many federal and state campgrounds are upgrading their 30A outlets to GFCI's these days. I think the most recent edition of the NEC now requires it for new installations.
 
William52 said:
Was not doing it before the floor was installed(suspect the workers who install floors over loaded a plug?) and the converter has not been touched New cords and adapter The ground fault in RV ok, House GFI tripping...
Click to expand...

Was the RV plugged into that house GFCI when the workers overloaded the plug?  If so, tripping under high currents could have weakened the house GFCI.

If you're talking about overloading a plug inside the RV, that wouldn't cause a GFCI to trip later on unless there was arcing or enough heating to create a carbon trail inside the plug.  I'd think this would leave visible indications of abuse on the outside of the outlet.

Try Ernie's suggestion.  Turn off all of the breakers in the RV, plug in and see if the GFCI trips.  If it does, the problem is in the power cord or plugs.  Now turn on the main breaker followed by one circuit breaker at a time until you get a trip.

It's a long shot, but possibly the pounding by the floor installers could have pinched or caused a sharp edge to drive into an improperly run wire.

Another thing you can try is measure the resistance between the ground pin and the remaining pins on your power cord.  Any resistance reading at all indicates a problem since a GFCI will trip on something like 200,000 ohms of leakage.

Make sure you do not touch the plug pins or the metal probes while measuring or you'll measure your body resistance instead of any leakage.
 
Alfa38User said:
This is, apparently, a common problem and that may be caused by the electric heater elements in the fridge or water heater. The usual solution is to NOT use a GFCI protected circuit for feeding an RV as you are doing. However, this can be difficult as it is your sister's home and because the only plugs you may have access to are outdoors which are supposed to be GFCI protected according to the electric codes. You might try forcing the fridge to gas by turning off "Auto" operation as well as the water heater before plugging in and see if the problem goes away. You might first try turning off the c/b's in the RV that supply these two items and see if it affects it as well.
Click to expand...
  Her home is new 1 year old and her 5th wheel does not trip it. Will try the fridge with gas and see if it goes away. Then converter is suspect I guess? btw no AC water heater.
 
Lou Schneider said:
Was the RV plugged into that house GFCI when the workers overloaded the plug?  If so, tripping under high currents could have weakened the house GFCI.

If you're talking about overloading a plug inside the RV, that wouldn't cause a GFCI to trip later on unless there was arcing or enough heating to create a carbon trail inside the plug.  I'd think this would leave visible indications of abuse on the outside of the outlet.

Try Ernie's suggestion.  Turn off all of the breakers in the RV, plug in and see if the GFCI trips.  If it does, the problem is in the power cord or plugs.  Now turn on the main breaker followed by one circuit breaker at a time until you get a trip.

It's a long shot, but possibly the pounding by the floor installers could have pinched or caused a sharp edge to drive into an improperly run wire.

Another thing you can try is measure the resistance between the ground pin and the remaining pins on your power cord.  Any resistance reading at all indicates a problem since a GFCI will trip on something like 200,000 ohms of leakage.

Make sure you do not touch the plug pins or the metal probes while measuring or you'll measure your body resistance instead of any leakage. No the RV was at another location and a 30 amp was used.
Click to expand...
        ( RV was elsewhere and a 30A was used.)
 
When I had my old Southwind, (30A) plugged in to my friends 20A receptacle, it would be fine until they used a hair dryer, microwave, coffee pot, or other higher watt/amperage device. Then it would trip the breaker in their house. I had to finally wire and use a dedicated 30A circuit/receptacle and there were no problems after that.
 
Gary RV_Wizard said:
Many federal and state campgrounds are upgrading their 30A outlets to GFCI's these days. I think the most recent edition of the NEC now requires it for new installations.
Click to expand...

Gary, there is nothing new in the NEC 2017 edition Chapter 5, Section 551, Part VI "Recreational Vehicle Parks", requiring GFCI's on anything other than the previously listed 15/20 amp site supply outlets. Individual states/municipalities of course, are free to add their own requirements.
 
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