Popping gfi at the house with my new XL hooked up

[Clcupp]

Did you check the polarity on the outlet in question?

[DieselDrax]

Originally Posted by vettecrazy

You need to plug into 30 amp, inside your house is just 20 amp. My husband installed a 30 amp outside for our RV. You can damage your unit running on low power. My husband is a electrician, last Park the 30 amp was out, the 50 was fine so we plugged into that. He requested they fix it as soon as possible because our unit needs 30 amps, he is very knowledgeable about the damage long term with not using the correct amps. Hope this helps some.

Amps determine how much current draw is available to power your devices. Plugging into a 15A or 50A with a 30A trailer won’t hurt a thing as long as the proper adapters are used. The lower available current of the 15A outlet just means you run fewer devices before hitting the max current and tripping a breaker on the shore power side.

Connecting to 50A power with a 30A RV means the breakers in the RV are what will trip if overloaded, the 50A breaker won’t ever trip unless there’s a short between the pedestal and panel in the RV.

15A, 30A, and 50A all provide the same amount of power; 120V. The difference is in how much current is available for your devices.

[cavie]

Originally Posted by CDRJML

Make sure your RV main switch is on before plugging into shore power.

you have that backwards. If you plug in under load you cause racing at the plug and this fuses burning and loose connections.

[Wyn]

That happened to me also, after a lot of testing, it was the neutral and ground were bonded in the automatic transfer switch. They we’re separated and it fixed the problem. The RV is to be wired as a sub panel, therefore the neutral and ground are not bonded.

[houstonstroker]

I'm late to this party and even with my limited attention span I read almost every post. But I think when we chase these problems we need some clarification right away. The OP started this thread with his rig kept popping the GFCI in his garage.

What we need to know early on is it popping the GFCI outlet or tripping the breaker. Two different events. It is a well known fact that RVs do not like to be plugged into GFCI outlets. They fight each other and will often cause the GFCI outlet to trip. Not exactly anything wrong just aggravating.

If the breaker is tripping after the rig is plugged into the GFCI outlet then that would be another event, over current.

Two things can trip but they are two different events.

My rig has the GFCI breakers. Harder to tell what is tripping the GFCI breaker. Is it the mismatch of current leaving and coming or over current?

My rig would trip the GFCI breaker or the pole at my storage unit. I read that GFCi breakers don't exactly have tight tolerances so I bought two new GFCI breakers and no more problems.

Anyway as always let me know if I am way off the base. Just a thought.

[DieselDrax]

Originally Posted by houstonstroker

I'm late to this party and even with my limited attention span I read almost every post. But I think when we chase these problems we need some clarification right away. The OP started this thread with his rig kept popping the GFCI in his garage.

What we need to know early on is it popping the GFCI outlet or tripping the breaker. Two different events. It is a well known fact that RVs do not like to be plugged into GFCI outlets. They fight each other and will often cause the GFCI outlet to trip. Not exactly anything wrong just aggravating.

If the breaker is tripping after the rig is plugged into the GFCI outlet then that would be another event, over current.

Two things can trip but they are two different events.

My rig has the GFCI breakers. Harder to tell what is tripping the GFCI breaker. Is it the mismatch of current leaving and coming or over current?

My rig would trip the GFCI breaker or the pole at my storage unit. I read that GFCi breakers don't exactly have tight tolerances so I bought two new GFCI breakers and no more problems.

Anyway as always let me know if I am way off the base. Just a thought.

This was already covered early on in this thread, it trips GFCI outlets and circuit breakers alike. It’s not limited to just GFCI outlets.

[kwindrem]

Originally Posted by houstonstroker

If the breaker is tripping after the rig is plugged into the GFCI outlet then that would be another event, over current.

Two things can trip but they are two different events.

This is an important differentiation in troubleshooting electrical problems.

GFCI trip indicated imbalanced current between hot(s) and neutral. As previously mentioned, capacitors in RFI filters inside devices can cause inrush currents that can be imbalanced and trip the GFCI (aka GFI).

Overloads will trip the breaker upstream of the overload.

There can be two levels of circuit breaker trips due to overload. If the trip is instantaneous when power is switched on, then the overload is significantly higher than the breaker rating. This can sometimes be a short circuit, but not always.

A delay in breaker tripping usually indicated the current is close to but greater than the breaker rating.

Note also that the transfer switch in the OP's rig will cause a slight delay too while it checks for proper incoming voltage before closing the shore power side of the transfer switch. I believe this is the pop the OP reported near the beginning of this thread and is perfectly normal.

From previous posts, it appears the charger circuit that's part of the inverter/charger is powered from the shore power connection BEFORE the main breaker in the RV's breaker panel. The power supply that's part of the charger probably has large capacitors that get charged when power is applied. This could be sufficient to pop a breaker nearly instantaneously. It may be that there's more than 20 amps flowing when the RV is powered and that may be the result of the breaker trip.

There is most likely a delay before the charger begins drawing current from the AC source. So I'd monitor things closely. Have someone flip the breaker in the house and listen for the thunk from the transfer switch, then measure/estimate the time before RV shore power is lost. If that happens right after the transfer switch engages, the problem is likely the inverter/charger's input capacitors overloading the 15 or 20 amp breaker. If it takes additional time (10-20 seconds), it could be related to battery charging kicking in.

[Timecritic]

Originally Posted by Hitch2go

At this point, I would fire up gen and get the batteries back to a Float charge condition (I.e. until current goes back to 0 amps on control panel), and then try the Shore Max setting again.

(Aside: Manual states that Inverter/Chargers of model types MM, MM-AE, or MMS will not benefit from Shore Max setting even though it is selectable at control panel. Not sure what model you have.)

If the batts have not been charged since the beginning of this thread (at least 7 days), the Charger is likely providing a pretty hefty charging current.

I did go to the charge rate screen today. That will disable charging. With the percent brought down to 0%. I turned the gen on. No charging done. I then shut it off. From there tried plugging shore line in. Breaker still pops.

[Timecritic]

Originally Posted by Wyn

That happened to me also, after a lot of testing, it was the neutral and ground were bonded in the automatic transfer switch. They we’re separated and it fixed the problem. The RV is to be wired as a sub panel, therefore the neutral and ground are not bonded.

Did you have to replace the switch to fix this?

[cavie]

Originally Posted by Wyn

That happened to me also, after a lot of testing, it was the neutral and ground were bonded in the automatic transfer switch. They we’re separated and it fixed the problem. The RV is to be wired as a sub panel, therefore the neutral and ground are not bonded.

At last! 124 post and somebody understands.

[hitchn2go]

Originally Posted by cavie

At last! 124 post and somebody understands.

But, How does that explain:
1) worked at dealer site if RV Transfer Switch is not correct
2) reported that it was tripping breaker on NON-GFI circuits

[bclemens]

Originally Posted by Hitch2go

But, How does that explain:
1) worked at dealer site if RV Transfer Switch is not correct
2) reported that it was tripping breaker on NON-GFI circuits

I might say because we still don't know the accuracy of the information given. There are GFI outlets, GFI breakers and outlets downstream of GFI outlets. Also, we don't know what else might be on that particular outlet that is being used. Rarely do we see dedicated outlets. I felt like this has already progressed past what we can troubleshoot without being there. This one feels familiar to the last time.

[cavie]

Originally Posted by bclemens

I might say because we still don't know the accuracy of the information given. There are GFI outlets, GFI breakers and outlets downstream of GFI outlets. Also, we don't know what else might be on that particular outlet that is being used. Rarely do we see dedicated outlets. I felt like this has already progressed past what we can troubleshoot without being there. This one feels familiar to the last time.