Popping 15 Amp Breakers at the campground.

[kuffelcreek]

cracker39:

Your teardrop breaker panel is actually a sub-panel of the panel on the park post, and thus by code must have the "neutral" (white) wires insulated and on a seperate buss bar from the ground (green or white) wires.

If you ground them all to the same buss like you do on the main breaker panel or a 12V situation, the ground wires will normally carry current, an unsafe situation as they are not designed for this.

This is why in the Cubby and Comet plans I do not give directions for wiring 120V onto the trailer. There are too many nuances about high-voltage wiring in a metal-clad trailer (which is insulated from the ground) that can be fatal or cause a quick fire. Things you may get away with in the house or garage can kill you on a trailer.

Unless you are an experienced electrician (or know one that will check over your work), it is best just to wire the trailer for 12V, and run an extension cord to whatever high-voltage items you want to run. GFI's occasionally go bad, and that usually means they won't trip from a ground fault which you'd normally be protected from.

Kevin Hauser

[GeorgeTelford]

Hi all

Few points

Logically the problem is before the weekenders breakers, not after, so there is no point asking about Igloo ampages, convertors etc they totally are irrelevant.

Likewise it would not matter if the breakers in the weekender were 5 amp for the same reasons as stated above.

Chuck, reversed polarity will NOT trip a GFCI all a GFCI does is measure Amps out on one wire and Amps back in on the other, in any missing it trips but it doesnt care which wire is which.

The ground wire IS supposed to be wired to the box. Did the electrician remove the earth neutral connection? that would be my guess.

Now for the big and important question, why did it work OK at home but not at the campsite? herein lies the true answer to the problem.

Kevin, 120V Mains Voltage is Low Voltage, high voltage runs on pylons

[cracker39]

OK. It's clarification time.

Kevin, let me describe my setup and ask a question to clarify what you are saying.

My TTT cabin is wood framed and skinned with plywood on a steel chassis. My 120VAC shore cable ground wire (green) to the breaker box on my TTT is grounded to the breaker box and the frame. My neutral wire (white) is not grounded to either. It is on the buss in the breaker box intended for that purpose. I will double check to make sure that the neutral buss is insulated from the box. My 25 amp WFCO 3-stage converter/charger is also grounded to the frame per the manufacturer's instructions. My 12V battery is also frame-grounded. I have GFCI outlets installed inside.

Are you saying that my main breaker on my TTT (located between the shore cable and the converter) should not have the ground wire for the incoming 120VAC grounded to the chassis, but only to the breaker box? If I am not mistaken, George and others with electrical knowledge advised the grounding as I have it described above.

As of yet, I have only had the power connected at home, not at a campground. I have an outlet tester to use at the campgrounds.

[Sonetpro]

There are too many nuances about high-voltage wiring in a metal-clad trailer (which is insulated from the ground) that can be fatal or cause a quick fire. Things you may get away with in the house or garage can kill you on a trailer.

I would have to agree. If you have it grounded to the frame that is insulated from the ground by tires and the campground has a faulty or missing ground, You now have a floating ground on the frame. It will take the path of least resistanse to ground, And that would be YOU If you are grounded and touch the frame.

[GeorgeTelford]

Hi Dale

Your's is wired correctly.

I think that Kevin is describing the earth neutral bonding and I am pretty sure that thats what was seperated on the weekender, but earth neutral bonding which when placed after a GFCI can cause the GFCI to trip (hence PART of the original posters problem) the cause is a difference in potential which shows up as earth leakage/missing ampage

The Big Question is still "why did the weekender trip at the campground" and not at Gadgets home?

[GeorgeTelford]

Hi Sonet

You now have a floating ground on the frame. It will take the path of least resistanse to ground, And that would be YOU If you are grounded and touch the frame.

If you have a GFCI then that should pop or the campgrounds will, without that cahssis grounding you introduce new dangers that are far more likely to kill you

It's been settled elsewhere that not grounding the chassis is

1 against code
2 likely to cause more danger than it creates.

Yes the simplist way is to run a GFCI extension to a tear and it will work, but is it safer than doing it properly and following code? your choice of course.

What bothers me is that people keep reccomending stuff and they have no idea at all of the dangers they are passing on to other people.

[Sonetpro]

What bothers me is that people keep reccomending stuff and they have no idea at all of the dangers they are passing on to other people.

Exatly my point. What I express is only my opinion. And only the way I would do it. I think if Dale or anybody else has any doubts they should have their wiring checked out by a journeyman electrician.
I am not a journeyman electrician nor do I claim to be. Are You?
I would not put my life at risk based on someones opinion.

[Gadget Man]

Ok Guys,
Now you are making me nervous.
So maybe Nitetimes idea was not the "miracle fix"
I know everything is working now. (still At home)
I almost feel like driving back the 70 miles to that same campground and check everything on that same power pole again.
I am going to print all your replys here again and show them to my Electrician, Plus the other "Older & Wiser" electrician who lives down the street.

Thanks for all the comments, This has truely been a learning experiance (for all)
I'll be back late Monday, everyone be safe.

Gadget Man

[cracker39]

Gadgetman, The posts about the electrical matters made me plenty nervous lots of times. I finally asked many questions and digested the answers and think I'm OK.

As to why it popped at the campground and not at home? Could this be why? If the neutral and ground were bonded (until the neighbor fixed it), and there was no GFCI at home (none at my house anyway), wouldn't it work ok at home since the main panel on the house may have them bonded as well, and pop if the campground had the GFCI in their box? Seems likely to me, but then, I'm an amateur re electricity.

[Nitetimes]

Gadgetman, The posts about the electrical matters made me plenty nervous lots of times. I finally asked many questions and digested the answers and think I'm OK.

As to why it popped at the campground and not at home? Could this be why? If the neutral and ground were bonded (until the neighbor fixed it), and there was no GFCI at home (none at my house anyway), wouldn't it work ok at home since the main panel on the house may have them bonded as well, and pop if the campground had the GFCI in their box? Seems likely to me, but then, I'm an amateur re electricity.

Dale You hit the nail right on the head.

Gadgetman If you have a GFCI recepticle somewhere that you can plug into, if it doesn't blow then your problem should be solved.

[GeorgeTelford]

Hi Dale

I would rather have someone thinking it through and asking questions any day of the week. Nice logical train of thought.... and that is certainly one possibility

Hi Sonetpro

I do not claim to be anything other than right (most of the time anyway, but always glad if someone can show when I go wrong, because then I am learning)

Hi Nitetimes

Your original answer included the incorrect point about not having the earth bus connected to the box, Dale may have hit the nail on the head but its by no means certain.

Gadgetman

Hopefully you will clarify whethor you have GFCI at home, if you do and it isnt popping then you have further problem's to find.

[Artificer]

It sounds like the Electician friend unbonded the neutral from the box, as suggested by Nitetimes. If thats so, and the campground was wired incorectly, you would instantly blow the breaker. Hot (on the neutral line) would be shorted to ground. Your house wiring is hopefully up to code, and done properly, so no problems with shorting while at home.

Gadget Man: can you call the state park, and have them check the circuit, if you don't drive over there? Tell them the campsite number, and that the hot and neutral lines might be switched. Did the panel even have a GFI, or was it a regular breaker? The mis-wiring may be further up the line since two campsite boxes blew the same way.

This reminds me of trying to run a computer off of a Vector inverter. Laptop ran fine, but the inverter tripped instantly as soon as I plugged in, or turned on the switch. Called Vector, and they said many computer power supplies have neutral bonded to ground. Since the inverter isn't properly grounded, the neutral floats, and acts like a hot wire. Clipped the ground plug, and the computer ran fine.

[GeorgeTelford]

Artificer

Even if the campground wiring is reversed it would make not one iota of difference to a GFCI tripping, reverse polarity can cause certain problems but tripping GFCI's is NOT one of them.

Earth neutral bonding within the tear may have been (part of) the problem. for safety reasons we now need to know whethor Gadget as a GFCI at home, reading what Gadget as written so far I think he has, in which case further investigation is required.

Computer power supplies do not have earth bonded to neutral that is a complete crock. would be against code or regs in even the worst of third world countries.

[kuffelcreek]

George

Thanks for all the clarifications. What I call high voltage is anything other than 12V that can be fatal (yes, I know that 0.3 amps can be fatal also).

My fear is that the neutral (or grounded as in the NEC) buss was hooked to the chassis ground (or grounding as in the NEC) buss.

A word about GFI's- when I was doing production residential electrical installations in the late'80s and early '90s, 10-20% of the GFI's were bad right out of the box. Used to drive me nuts in troubleshooting why the downstream bath plug would not trip the GFI in the upstairs bath. In doing warranty work on tract homes I'd find another 5% had failed within a year. Usually they would fail by not tripping. I imagine in an outdoor environment like a park they would also have a high failure rate. You can get a little tester to test before you plug in (we used them a lot on rainy construction sites).

A GFI works by measuring the current going out and the current coming back. If there is a difference between the two (current going through your body to the ground), it is supposed to shut off within 1/10 of a second. It is not a current limiting device like a breaker, which will gladly let current go through your body as long as it does not exceed 20 amps or whatever. I never had problems with refrigerators or compressors tripping them either, like I had heard stories of. Usually when they trip there was a legitimate problem that should be addressed.

However if the BREAKER (not the GFI) was tripping, that shows a serious problem, potentially much more serious than the GFI tripping. Somehow current was exceeding the breaker's capacity, usually showing a short to ground (which has death or fire written all over it).

[Artificer]

Artificer

Even if the campground wiring is reversed it would make not one iota of difference to a GFCI tripping, reverse polarity can cause certain problems but tripping GFCI's is NOT one of them.

Earth neutral bonding within the tear may have been (part of) the problem. for safety reasons we now need to know whethor Gadget as a GFCI at home, reading what Gadget as written so far I think he has, in which case further investigation is required.

Computer power supplies do not have earth bonded to neutral that is a complete crock. would be against code or regs in even the worst of third world countries.

The question I have for Gadget Man is: was there a GFI on the outlet of the campground? My limited powered campsite experience says that not all outlets have them. If there wasn't a GFI, then the problem is probably solved by getting rid of the neutral to ground bonding. I couldn't get any indication for your post one way or another. I'm basing the non-GFI on the statement "popped the breaker" not tripped the GFI. If there wasn't a GFI, then they don't enter the picture of what the problem was.

If the outlet DID have a GFI, then a properly wired campground outlet could be tripped by the neutral bonding. Did the GFI trip, or did the breaker trip? (unless its a GFI breaker, which I don't think they would use, due to cost)

Computer PS neutral bonding: Just checked a spare computer. It causes a fault indicator on the Vector inverter. Multimeter says no neutral bonding, but something in there causes the fault. Must be common to Vector inverters, since the tech knew immediately what was wrong. Clip the ground, and away you go. I'd be interested if others have the same problem with other brand inverters. Anyone hazard a guess why it causes the ground fault?