Heat trace panels class 1 div.2

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chuckgassmannm

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el paso tx el paso
I'm trouble shooting some heat trace. The branch circuits are 277 v single pole gfci 30 amp breakers. One of the circuits keeps tripping., even with out a load. After disconnecting the wires at the panel and from the heat trace cable. When I check the voltage between the neutral and ground I get a reading of 60 v ac. There are two other circuits running in parallel. When I turn off 1 of the circuits the voltage drops to 30 v and when I turn off the other one it drops to.v 6 volts. Can that be induced voltage? I'm suspecting a bad breaker. But the voltage reading is getting me side tracked. Thanks

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To get that kind of voltage, induced or otherwise, between neutral and ground it seems certain that either your neutral or your ground (between which you are measuring the voltage) has an open connection back to the system bond point or the ground neutral bond is missing.
Do you have a disconnect switch that also opens the neutral?
Are you sure that the circuit in question is a grounded circuit?
Is it possible that the hot and neutral wires have been reversed somewhere in the circuit?
 
The gfci breaker does open both the line and neutral. I'll check to see if the panel is bonded.I checked for any obvious cuts,scrapes or shorts at the j box and lb' s and everything looked OK. I guess the next step would be to pull out the wires. I'll do a continuity check between all the wires.

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chuckgassmannm said:
The gfci breaker does open both the line and neutral. I'll check to see if the panel is bonded.I checked for any obvious cuts,scrapes or shorts at the j box and lb' s and everything looked OK. I guess the next step would be to pull out the wires. I'll do a continuity check between all the wires.

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I have never seen a GFCI or GFPE (ground fault protection of equipment) that opens both the ungrounded and grounded conductor. Yes the grounded conductor is connected to the breaker, but the breaker does not open the grounded conductor.
 
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