Isata 5 & 15 amp GFi Shore Power?

[vlamgat]

The storage building shore power, 15 amp outlet I have been using for the last 8 years to power an Outback 3000w I/C and a Triplite 2000w I/C will not connect to the Isata 5 28SS Explorer without popping. I know the connector cable works (2 long term recent uses with RVs and I believe the outlet is ok as it powers 2 1500w heaters without popping - so what's the unique set up in this rig that makes it pop even without battery or solar power being switched on?

I suspect the answer - will be the same as I have read in my Searches, no one knows but: get another outlet; get another connector; RVs GFi's inherently conflict with shore power GFi; Remove the Gfi and take the "fry risk"; get a 30 or 50 amp installation. Actually I do not buy any of these because they are guesses like I am doing here and an electrician is going to need significant expertise to diagnose the wiring and internal resistances of all the Isata 5 installation, an expertise I would not know where to source. I might be able to payoff an electrician to swap out the GFi but since I am a tenant, there is no chance that a 30/50 amp install would be allowed.

So I believe my only other alternatives are to (a) run the AGS for a couple of hours a day and fill the building with CO during the process; (b) drill into the battery compartment which is inside the coach and route a Li charger to protect the Li from discharge to zero in below 45* temperatures. Even with the battery disconnect, the residual draw in about 300 mah, promising effective discharge over 5 days. I sampled this off the main power cable from the battery pack.

Can anyone suggest another alternative?

[WanderMore]

After you plug in and it pops can you reset it while it is still plugged in? If yes then I would suspect a leak to the ground leg. This is because a GFCI compares the amount of current flowing through the hot lead to the current flowing through the neutral lead. If they are equal then all is well. If there is less current flowing back through neutral then the difference is flowing back through a ground. It only takes a difference of a few milliamps to cause a trip.
If it doesn’t pop I would suspect the coach has neutral tied to ground and there is a very slight difference in how the plug makes contact to the GFCI. The ground pin is the longest so it makes contact first. If the hot makes contact next then you will get a completed circuit through the coach neutral to ground. The GFCI will see current on hot and none on neutral resulting in a trip.
The accepted safety practice is to turn off your converter main breaker, plug into shore power and then turn the main breaker on. This insures all contacts are secure before current flows.

[Desert Boat]

Maybe the GFI is good and telling you something.

It doesn't take much leakage current (5 milliamps) on the ground circuit to trip the GFI. It does not trip on overcurrent - e.g., the two heaters. The circuit breaker provides overcurrent protection.

Disconnect shore power, turn OFF the inverter AND generator, and measure the resistance between neutral and ground at your exterior shore power connection.

Gut says high 100K ohms expected between neutral and ground. Math says below 24K ohms you would expect enough leakage at 120 V for a trip.

I do not have my 28SS at home to do a comparison, may be able to get it tomorrow.

Unfortunately, if there is a low resistance between neutral and ground, you have an easter egg hunt to find the problem. Breakers do not help, as they are on the hot side of the circuit.

GFIs do not conflict - the first one to sense the 5 milliamps should trip. (Most hairdryers today have built in GFIs, and are plugged in to bathroom GFIs, for everyday example of stacked GFIs.)

This might imply the problem is not on a GFI circuit, but somewhere else in the RV.

Update: After writing this, I realize I do not know the unpowered position of the transfer switch relays. If the relay opens when power is off (which the diagram implies), then the resistance reading has to be taken downstream of the transfer switch.

Update 2: I have had our 28SS (non explorer) at home several days plugged in to a 15 amp GFI without issue.

[vlamgat]

Thanks for the Intel. I will try the change in power up protocol but also agree with the view that since the breaker is on the power side its not going to help.

I can reset the GFi after it pops but it pops again within seconds. I was glad to hear that a non Explorer 28SS could be plugged into a 15 amp GFi which may remove a systemic Isata fault. I just don't have any of the skills to evaluate the Neutral to Ground difference nor is the skill range to do this in evidence in a world that changes stuff rather than diagnosis and repair.

Brian, if you are watching this, could you PM me a tech who might be able to check whether an undelivered 28SS Explorer can be plugged into a 15 amp GFi successfully?

[Desert Boat]

Maybe a simpler way to test if it is the outlet or the RV, see if you can locate another 15 amp GFI to plug in to.

If the second GFI trips, then the problem is prolly in the RV.

If that GFI doesn't trip, then the problem is prolly your storage GFI. They sometimes go bad with age.

[vlamgat]

Good idea. At the moment however, I am battening down the hatches ahead of snow, sleet and freezing rain with DTM highs in the single digits starting tomorrow. The purpose of this plug in was to preserve that batteries which will self destruct as they heat themselves at sub 40* temps. This is no problem for a day, or maybe 2, but this Polar Vortex is going to be with us until Tuesday. So I just don't have access to another socket anywhere that does not require driving.

[Desert Boat]

Ok, pure survival mode.

Try this - trip all AC breakers on your coach except the line 1 in and inverter feed. With luck, that _might_ isolate the problem but allow your inverter to keep the batteries charged without tripping the GFI.

[vlamgat]

Originally Posted by Desert Boat

Ok, pure survival mode.

Try this - trip all AC breakers on your coach except the line 1 in and inverter feed. With luck, that _might_ isolate the problem but allow your inverter to keep the batteries charged without tripping the GFI.

Sounds like a good plan. Only thing is, the GFi trips with nothing connected at all. Battery off.

But as I posted earlier, if the I/C can never be isolated from the batteries as I suspect from the residual power draw, then the basic installation is faulty and prima facie does not meet code. We all have a problem if this is true.

[Desert Boat]

Are you saying the GFI trips with all AC breakers turned off on the main AC panel?

If so, then the problem prolly is between the main 50 amp breakers and the GFI, since there should be no 120 V going past the 50 amp main breakers.

This could be:
- the internal line (prolly 6 ga) between the shore power connector and the breakers,
- the shore power connector itself, or
- the power cord from the shore power to the GFI.

Unfortunately, this doesn't help you tonight.

Battery main disconnect _should_ have nothing to do with it, since they are in the 12V circuit, not 120 V.

[vlamgat]

Originally Posted by Desert Boat

Are you saying the GFI trips with all AC breakers turned off on the main AC panel?

If so, then the problem prolly is between the main 50 amp breakers and the GFI, since there should be no 120 V going past the 50 amp main breakers.

This could be:
- the internal line (prolly 6 ga) between the shore power connector and the breakers,
- the shore power connector itself, or
- the power cord from the shore power to the GFI.

Unfortunately, this doesn't help you tonight.

Battery main disconnect _should_ have nothing to do with it, since they are in the 12V circuit, not 120 V.

I get your point on the 120v vs the 12v systems so will do the breaker thing tomorrow. I will also drop the Max charge rate to 10% because that is also part of the 120v system and upon the application of power to the 50 amp system it would seek the current 100 amp charge rate presently in the system. Your point also confirms I think, my view that we cannot isolate the I/C from a residual battery draw at all times. But perhaps the breakers can isolate this draw although they did not on any of my previous set ups.

[Desert Boat]

Seems you have two separate issues

GFI tripping. This is going to be in the 120 v components somewhere, possibly including the Inverter/charger, unless the gfi outlet needs to be replaced.

Residual DC drain. If the main battery disconnect switch is off (not the solenoid switch) is off and the inverter is disabled, then the only remaining connection should* be the dc connection between the batteries and the charger.

*I do not know where the battery heater for lithium batteries connects, and some coaches end up wired differently. My setup is a June 2020 vintage 28ss.

[houstonstroker]

GFCI breakers do go bad. At my storage unit there are multiple poles with AC so I can plug in to another breaker controlled outlet to see what happens. Can you do this?

[Phreak480]

Originally Posted by vlamgat

Thanks for the Intel. I will try the change in power up protocol but also agree with the view that since the breaker is on the power side its not going to help.

I can reset the GFi after it pops but it pops again within seconds. I was glad to hear that a non Explorer 28SS could be plugged into a 15 amp GFi which may remove a systemic Isata fault. I just don't have any of the skills to evaluate the Neutral to Ground difference nor is the skill range to do this in evidence in a world that changes stuff rather than diagnosis and repair.

Brian, if you are watching this, could you PM me a tech who might be able to check whether an undelivered 28SS Explorer can be plugged into a 15 amp GFi successfully?

My 2017 I5 35DB is plugged into a 15 amp circuit with GFI on the front of my house currently. And my 30ft timberlodge bunkhouse camper is also plugged into that same outlet. Neither has given me any issues and the travel trailer has been that way for a few years now.

I'd do as other suggested, turn off even the main breaker in the RV and plug the cord in and see what happens. If it still trips then try plugging in with the shore cord completely disconnected from the RV and see if it trips, if it trips then I'd bet on a bad cord or bad outlet. Gotta step through with process of elimination unfortunately. In the Army Signal corps we do "half splitting" where we keep dividing the problem in half until we narrow down where it is. Turning off all the breakers except the main effectively split you down the half that starts at the breaker panel and goes to the gfi outlet you are plugging in to.

[vlamgat]

I turned off ALL the breakers, switched the battery on without the inverter - GFi popped; did it again without the battery - GFi popped. Now I have 2 1200w heaters and a car LiPo charger running off the same pair of sockets with no GFi issues. So again - there is something in the way the shore power is connected to the I/C that conflicts with household Gfi's. I have seen this before. Its because the I/C is never isolated from the battery set. Put another way, the Charger is always connected and it draws too much for a 15 amp GFi/socket. Born Free had this issue too and their work around was to install an I/C isolation switch between the battery and the I/C. This meant that instead of the battery cut off in the electrical compartment being downstream from the I/C, it was upstream.

I have pointed this issue out to Brian before I had the experience of ownership but received a figurative shrug! Apparently no one else sees this as a problem. I think its an important issue because I have read many posts of owners going through the covered storage process only to return to flat house batteries. The residual draw of the inverter will flatten batteries in a couple of weeks, or sooner with wet cells. I also suspect that the Magnum I/C configuration is in a volatile memory and needs this power access to retain the setup. This was not the case with the Tripplite or Outback systems where I had the same issues on different GFi's.

[vlamgat]

Originally Posted by houstonstroker

GFCI breakers do go bad. At my storage unit there are multiple poles with AC so I can plug in to another breaker controlled outlet to see what happens. Can you do this?

Not easily - I will have to move the coach to an unoccupied unit that has a GFi with the help and support of the storage area staff which is unlikely to be forthcoming as all the powered units are occupied. Eventually I will test this but based on the behavior of this GFi on other occasions and its current performance under significant load with #10 - 25' cabled heaters, I am fairly sure its operation is nominal. All the more so because this GFi is popping the moment the 50/15 amp cable is plugged in with, or without the batteries being on, or the inverter breakers being on. It's a charger load issue which cannot be switched off. The Firefly OM does not address the control of the Charger, just the Inverter. I can see a protocol for the proportion of charge being used but its not manually controllable AFAIK.

[bclemens]

Have you tried changing the incoming shore power?

I seem to recall I also had this issue, but got it to work. I had the 28SS in 96 degree heat, plugged into a 20 amp outlet. I don't think it was GFI however (HALLA???).

I changed the incoming to 15 amps and shut down both A/C's. Once it was up and running, I turned one A/C on and ran that way for two days.

I think I also turned the charger down to 20%

I'm not sure what you refer to sharing this experience and got a shrug? I only recall you asking about doing this and I explained what I did to make that happen. (at least what I remembered)

[Desert Boat]

Originally Posted by vlamgat

All the more so because this GFi is popping the moment the 50/15 amp cable is plugged in with, or without the batteries being on, or the inverter breakers being on.

You have mentioned the inverter breaker several times. Have you checked with _all_ AC breakers off? Completely strip the AC panel.

Originally Posted by vlamgat

It's a charger load issue which cannot be switched off.

On my 28SS, you just press the charger icon to disable it. I have another firefly issue, but that part works.

[bclemens]

Originally Posted by Desert Boat

I have another firefly issue, but that part works.

Side note, they are working with Magnum to figure out why Gen power would default to 20% charge rate (If I am correct and that was you). Its somewhere deep inside the settings.

[Desert Boat]

Originally Posted by bclemens

(If I am correct and that was you).

Brian - nope, my 28SS charges at 100% on generator. I think it is the lithium folks that have that issue.

My problem is that the Mira wireless module seems to be missing from my system. On warranty punch list with my dealer.

[bclemens]

Originally Posted by Desert Boat

Brian - nope, my 28SS charges at 100% on generator. I think it is the lithium folks that have that issue.

My problem is that the Mira wireless module seems to be missing from my system. On warranty punch list with my dealer.

Ah, well that's better...sort of. I actually thought the BT module was onboard, and the Precisions Plex was an add-on module....but then maybe I am confused.