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Got an o5 Winnie with a norcold Elect/Propane refig. works great but when I plug it into my outdoor 115VA GFI protected outlet with the frig on it trips the GFI, turn the frig off and everythings hunkey-dorey. The elect part of the frig is nothing more than a heater element that heats the amonia solution rather that heat it with propane.
Anyone trouble shoot a problem like this? Could it be a faulty ground somewhere?
I would first try plugging the fridge, via a known good extension cord, directly into the house outlet.If it trips the house GFI, then it probably is the fridge. (Bad ground cable – plug at the fridge?)
If the fridge works direct into the house, with an extension cord, try another plug on another circuit in the rig just to try and isolate the problem.
Secondarily, if you have a long enough extension cord, try another house GFI outlet that is known to be on a different GFI in your house.GFI’s do become finicky.
Finally, it could be the 50/30 to 20 amp adapter for the rig and the fridge is just on the “bad” side of the adapter. (Don’t know how better to put that.)
Don’t know if this help will fix it, but it might help you find where the problem is located.
I agree, the proposed troubleshooting suggestions are spot on. Try plugging direct to a different stix and brix outlet, using an extension cord. Also, unplug the frig and then use a known device (drill, hair dryer, etc) to the plug in the back of the frig compartment. If all else fails, it is probably the GFI device that is faulty. A ground fault is not to be ignored, it is a serious event. I just hope it is not the heating element on the frig.
Randy, you are the victim of extreme overkill! A GFI is for folks that are so stupid that they dry their hair while in a tub full of water. GFIs were not necessary for 50 years, until some extreme liberals decided that natural selection could be avoided by GFIs! I finally gave up on installing a GFI breaker in my new bathroom, after three of them instantly tripped. I switched to a standard breaker and a GFI receptacle, and everything worked fine.
The bottom line is that you will never stand in a pool of water while touching anything on your refrigerator that is hot, so a GFI is useless for a refrigerator. If you can, just avoid external GFI receptacles. A GFI will trip if the 'ground' and 'neutral' touch each other, which will cause a circuit to 'break' in a couple of milliseconds less than otherwise. As stated by Bill, GFIs are known to be flaky, as was the case in my new bathroom!
If the receptacle you are using is a GFI, replace it with a non-GFI receptacle. If the breaker on that circuit is a GFI breaker, replace it. Unless there are kitchen or bathroom receptacles on that circuit, it does not need to be a GFI, unless your local code was written by an extreme liberal or someone that sells GFI for a living.
Good luck fixing your 'problem' that should not be a problem...
The frig has tripped two different GFI's so its not the GFI, next time I run it over to the house I will unplug the refrig and put another load on that circuit and see if it trips the GFI. It runs fine on the generator , I'm thinking a poor ground somewhere - maybe in the duplex 15amp the refrig plugs into in the RV, I'll dust off my VTVM er VOM and start tracing down circuits. Its not rocket science but you sure have to be a detective on some of these "simple" problems.
I had a gfi circuit that tripped when it rained or whenever I used the ouside outlet. I needed to replace the outlet anyway because it was too worn to hold a plug in. When I pulled it out I found the real culprit. When the mfg ran the romex to the box, they cut the insulation on the hot lead when they stripped off the outer insulation. The gasket that's supposed to keep out water was dried out so water could get in the box. The nuetral screw was also loose on the outlet. So between the water and the flacky nuetral connection the gfi kept tripping. The ground screw and connector were completely black from arcing. That was a real eye opener, and I'm glad the gfi kept tripping since that alerted me to the problem. Could have started a fire.
-- Edited by Penny and Paul on Monday 4th of April 2011 11:46:32 AM
Got the Winnie over this morning & started tracking down the GFI problem,
Plugged the frig plug into the GFI that the RV was tripping and the frig ran fine, plugged a hair dryer into the outlet that the frig was plugged into and it tripped the GFI on the hairdryer.
Switched all the juice off, took out my screwdriver & tightened every screw terminal I could find & problem went away.
