Tripping GFCI receptacle

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mhanson

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Redwood City, CA
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General Journeyman Electrician
Good day all
Recently installed a new weather resistant GFCI receptacle outdoors. Before leaving the job I inserted my GFCI tester as I always do, and the GFCI tripps on insertion, no test buttons pressed.
I plugged in several devises including a table lamp, and a hair dryer all work perfectly.
I notice The new GFCI rec. Has a new self test feature, does anyone know of an incompatability with these new devices?
(I've never attached a photo before, hopefully this works)
GFCI- LEVITON GFWT1-KW
TESTER- IDEAL #61-534 transmitter
Thank you
Michael Hanson
 
It has three lights. One lights up if there's voltage from hot to ground.

This is no better than a wild guess, but if the LED draws 3 milliamps and the GFCI is miscalibrated so it trips below 5 milliamps, that would match your observations. The appliances presumably have no current to the EGC at all, or so I would hope.
 
I would be curious if that tester works in other gfci receptacles. If so then you may have a sensitive device but it should not trip if there is no leakage.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
I would be curious if that tester works in other gfci receptacles. If so then you may have a sensitive device but it should not trip if there is no leakage.
Click to expand...
It is also possible that there is a low level of leakage in the pass through circuit of the GFCI and the tester current just puts it over the edge.
If the pass through terminals are not used, ignore the suggestion.
 
GoldDigger said:
It is also possible that there is a low level of leakage in the pass through circuit of the GFCI and the tester current just puts it over the edge.
If the pass through terminals are not used, ignore the suggestion.
Click to expand...

Then why does a lamp trip it? Seems like the tester has an issue of some leakage to ground somehow thru some of the electronics. However if this working on other devices then it must be the GFCI receptacle and somehow the tester together
 
Dennis Alwon said:
Then why does a lamp trip it? Seems like the tester has an issue of some leakage to ground somehow thru some of the electronics. However if this working on other devices then it must be the GFCI receptacle and somehow the tester together
Click to expand...
You are confusing two threads. The OP says that a lamp works fine and only the tester causes trips.
 
GoldDigger said:
You are confusing two threads. The OP says that a lamp works fine and only the tester causes trips.
Click to expand...


It should have said why doesn't the lamp trip it. My bad. Based on what you stated I thought you were saying the tester has enough current to cause an issue.... unless you are talking ground fault current leakage and a bad receptacle.
 
mhanson said:
GFCI tripps on insertion, no test buttons pressed. TESTER- IDEAL #61-534 transmitter
Click to expand...
My ShureTest ST-1 did the same thing ~1 year before it died.
Short 3 prongs on tester with coin, before insert.
Leave it plugged in, must reset GFCI ~4 times before it holds.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
I would be curious if that tester works in other gfci receptacles. If so then you may have a sensitive device but it should not trip if there is no leakage.
Click to expand...

Dennis, I did also test a GFCI receptacle I installed about 6 months ago and all worked as expected.
the only difference between the two is the new GFCI has an "auto test" feature.

Monday I will attempt to contact Leviton and Ideal to see if this may be a recognized issue.

Thank You for your comments.

Michael Hanson
 
LEVITON responded with the following letter.
The basic gist is third party testers are not a recognized testing method for GFCI rec. The device's test button is the only recognized test method.

·*GFCI testers are listed under a different standard than GFCI receptacles, breakers and other devices. The way a GFCI tester typically works is by putting a resistor through a switch in series between the hot blade and the ground pin of the tester. When the test is implemented, the switch closes and creates a ground fault.

·*The resistor needs to be selected so that the ground fault current it creates is somewhere between 6 and 9ma at 120V +/- a given tolerance. The reason for this is that GFCIs are required to trip between 4 – 6ma. If you had a tester that only created a 5ma ground fault, a GFCI that trips at 5.5ma would not trip and appear to be non-functioning.

·*At these low ground fault levels, the time allowed for a GFCI to trip is close to 2 seconds.

·*The readings that you obtained indicate that the ground fault current created by the tester was measured at 7.1 – 7.3 ma. This is strictly a function of the tester’s internal resistor and the voltage on the circuit. This is not an indication of the GFCI’s trip threshold. As mentioned above, UL requires this to be between 6 and 9ma so this is acceptable.

·*The GFCI trip times were all in the neighborhood of 0.025 ms. Again, this is well within the UL requirements as set forth in UL 943.

*

*

Barry Miles
Sr. Technical Services Representative
T:*800-824-3005*| F:*800-832-9538

Leviton Manufacturing Co., Inc.
201 North Service Road., Melville, NY 11747
www.leviton.com*|*bmiles@leviton.com

Stay Connected with FREE Leviton Mobile Apps:www.leviton.com/apps

*
 
mhanson said:
LEVITON responded with the following letter.
The basic gist is third party testers are not a recognized testing method for GFCI rec. The device's test button is the only recognized test method.

·*GFCI testers are listed under a different standard than GFCI receptacles, breakers and other devices. The way a GFCI tester typically works is by putting a resistor through a switch in series between the hot blade and the ground pin of the tester. When the test is implemented, the switch closes and creates a ground fault.

·*The resistor needs to be selected so that the ground fault current it creates is somewhere between 6 and 9ma at 120V +/- a given tolerance. The reason for this is that GFCIs are required to trip between 4 – 6ma. If you had a tester that only created a 5ma ground fault, a GFCI that trips at 5.5ma would not trip and appear to be non-functioning.

·*At these low ground fault levels, the time allowed for a GFCI to trip is close to 2 seconds.

·*The readings that you obtained indicate that the ground fault current created by the tester was measured at 7.1 – 7.3 ma. This is strictly a function of the tester’s internal resistor and the voltage on the circuit. This is not an indication of the GFCI’s trip threshold. As mentioned above, UL requires this to be between 6 and 9ma so this is acceptable.

·*The GFCI trip times were all in the neighborhood of 0.025 ms. Again, this is well within the UL requirements as set forth in UL 943.

*

*

Barry Miles
Sr. Technical Services Representative
T:*800-824-3005*| F:*800-832-9538

Leviton Manufacturing Co., Inc.
201 North Service Road., Melville, NY 11747
www.leviton.com*|*bmiles@leviton.com

Stay Connected with FREE Leviton Mobile Apps:www.leviton.com/apps

*
Click to expand...

Terrible answer.

Did you not say the tester trips the receptacle as soon as it's plugged in? The resistor in the tester is not in circuit until the button is pushed. The size of the resistor has nothing at all to do with anything unless the test button is pushed.

The only thing 'true' about the response is that 3rd party testers are not acceptable. The reason is that there are many locations without grounding receptacles. I have special set ups to connect to a solid ground for using my push button testers.

Although I use them and modify them to work where they usually won't, I strongly suggest against the use of them. What happens if you push the button, the power clicks off, but won't click back on because another GFCI somewhere up stream is feeding the one you just tripped? Or what if you are testing a non-GFCI, push the button, power goes out and there is no GFCI receptacle or breaker in the house?

The answer given by one of the posters about the LED in the tester being the possible culprit is likely the best answer.

Try a different tester in the suspect receptacle, then also try the testers in different receptacles.

Or just give up with the testers and use the buttons.
 
K8MHZ said:
Terrible answer.

Did you not say the tester trips the receptacle as soon as it's plugged in? The resistor in the tester is not in circuit until the button is pushed. The size of the resistor has nothing at all to do with anything unless the test button is pushed.

The only thing 'true' about the response is that 3rd party testers are not acceptable. The reason is that there are many locations without grounding receptacles. I have special set ups to connect to a solid ground for using my push button testers.

Although I use them and modify them to work where they usually won't, I strongly suggest against the use of them. What happens if you push the button, the power clicks off, but won't click back on because another GFCI somewhere up stream is feeding the one you just tripped? Or what if you are testing a non-GFCI, push the button, power goes out and there is no GFCI receptacle or breaker in the house?

The answer given by one of the posters about the LED in the tester being the possible culprit is likely the best answer.

Try a different tester in the suspect receptacle, then also try the testers in different receptacles.

Or just give up with the testers and use the buttons.
Click to expand...


Thank you Marky,
Yes the GFCI tripps immediately on insertion, no button press. And I did try my tester in several older style GFCI rec. And the tester worked normally And as expected.
The only difference is the new style GFCI has this "auto test" feature.
Thanks again for all the comments.
I am still waiting for response from Ideal.
Michael h.
 
mhanson said:
Thank you Marky,
Yes the GFCI tripps immediately on insertion, no button press. And I did try my tester in several older style GFCI rec. And the tester worked normally And as expected.
The only difference is the new style GFCI has this "auto test" feature.
Thanks again for all the comments.
I am still waiting for response from Ideal.
Michael h.
Click to expand...

You are welcome.

You may be on to something about the auto test feature, if that's the only difference. Or it may be a very sensitive unit that is seeing the LED connected to the grounding pin as a ground fault.
 
My Tasco will sometimes trip Gfci when I plug it in, even if Gfci test switch is set to off. But then I can reset Gfci and it won't trip until I move switch to test.
 
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