GFCI Effectiveness

1

102 Inspector

Senior Member
Location
N/E Indiana
Occupation
Inspector- All facets
Situation - Accessory building 200 feet from principle structure. Homeowner wants to run 10-2 UF for voltage drop, but protect it from a 20 Amp GFCI receptacle mounted exterior on the side of the main house. Is there any distance of load side conductor where a GFCI receptacle losses it capabilities to work properly? Does a circuit breaker provide better protection for this situation. I am an inspector with concern, not asking for installation advise.
 
If coming off of the load side of the GFCI, the length of the conductors is not affected by ground-fault operation. The only issue would be voltage drop. Using a GFCI breaker would protect 100% of the branch circuit. If using a GFCI receptacle, only the conductors connected to the load side are GFCI protected.
 
No "loss of effectiveness" from cable length, but a good chance of nuisance tripping due to capacitance.

I suggest supplying the run from the line-side terminals, which means burying the cable 18" instead of 12"
 
Going extra depth makes sense instead of GFCI protected circuit. Would still comply with Table 300.5, Column 1 for direct burial cable. Same would apply if a standard circuit breaker were installed with no additional outlet, just straight shot. Thanks for making think outside the box on approvals.
 
102 Inspector said:
Going extra depth makes sense instead of GFCI protected circuit. Would still comply with Table 300.5, Column 1 for direct burial cable. Same would apply if a standard circuit breaker were installed with no additional outlet, just straight shot. Thanks for making think outside the box on approvals.
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Column 1 for direct buried cable would require 24" of cover.
 
LarryFine said:
I suggest supplying the run from the line-side terminals,
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I think that's what the OP wants to do. Better yet just splice the new UF to the feed coming into the box and pigtail the existing GFCI receptacle to it. That way the GFCI receptacle is out of the picture. (I hate daisy chaining off receptacles.)

-Hal
 
In hospital ER LIM panels you are not allowed to use type THHN/THWN standard building wires to any of the receptacles. Should use type XHHW-2 low leakage cross linked polyethylene ( XLPE ) insulation. When GFCI's first started out in early 1970's the supply house said if you install a GFCI on long circuit runs that could have problems with nuisance tripping.
 
garbo said:
In hospital ER LIM panels you are not allowed to use type THHN/THWN standard building wires to any of the receptacles. Should use type XHHW-2 low leakage cross linked polyethylene ( XLPE ) insulation. When GFCI's first started out in early 1970's the supply house said if you install a GFCI on long circuit runs that could have problems with nuisance tripping.
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Hello, sir. This message has nothing to do with the post, but it's the way i found to reach you. In a post from 2022 you said that you were having trouble to read the DC-link voltage from ABB drivers and that ABB woudn't answer how to do it. Well, i'm facing a similar problem with a ACS800 driver. Coud you, please, tell me how to read the DC-link voltage via the display screen?
 
R_Alexandrino said:
Hello, sir. This message has nothing to do with the post, but it's the way i found to reach you. In a post from 2022 you said that you were having trouble to read the DC-link voltage from ABB drivers and that ABB woudn't answer how to do it. Well, i'm facing a similar problem with a ACS800 driver. Coud you, please, tell me how to read the DC-link voltage via the display screen?
Click to expand...
 
Retired a few years ago and never worked on an ACS800 ABB drive. We had ACH550 ABB drives but will try to help you. First off ABB continues ( in my opinion) to still be a very difficult company for tech support or answers over the internet One search for accessing ABB DC Buss voltage on drives supplied over 3/4 million useless answers. No mention of DC Buss voltage in worthless 54 page user Manuel. Downloaded the ACH550-1 471 Page user Manuel and stated on page 172 to go to group 1 then into parameter 0107 to read DC Buss on the control panel. For a drive supplied by 480 volts three phase DC Buss = supply Holts × 141 = 676.8 volts DC . ( Usually 660 to 672 volts).One u tube vidio had that at least some ABB drives have a terminal strip where you can measure the DC Buss voltage with a meter. The old Danfoss VLT drives had an easy to access terminal strip to take DC Buss voltage readings but not on FC 100 & 200 Drives. Note for some reason the Danfoss DC Buss readings were always within a volt or two between reading on the LCB ( Local control panel ) and no matter what meter I measured it compared to LCB.
 
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