Two pole gfci breaker

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bluecollar84

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Will a two pole 30 amp gfci breaker work with out the neural load side hooked up? My heat pump load has no neutral needed


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No neutral needed from the load, but the pigtail on the breaker needs to be attached to the supply circuit's neutral.
 
Tying it to the Equipment grounding conductor will let it work, but to be code compliant it needs to tie to a neutral conductor.

The "control circuit" of the device needs a neutral to function.
 
If the heat pump does not require GFCI protection you can leave the neutral pigtail disconnected and the CB will still work.
 
infinity said:
If the heat pump does not require GFCI protection you can leave the neutral pigtail disconnected and the CB will still work.
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Might want to cap the neutral pigtail as it very well will have voltage potential on it when the breaker is on.

and is an expensive method compared to a standard breaker:happyyes:
 
infinity said:
You would leave that up to the installer to decide.
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Let me rephrase the question: How does the load being required to be GFCI protected or not have anything to do with the GFCI's performance when connecting or not connecting the neutral pigtail?
 
480sparky said:
Let me rephrase the question: How does the load being required to be GFCI protected or not have anything to do with the GFCI's performance when connecting or not connecting the neutral pigtail?
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I thought what he meant was if the load supplied doesn't require GFCI protection that not connecting the neutral pigtail still leaves you with overcurrent protection but not GFCI protection - and is why I said it is an expensive way of doing it.
 
kwired said:
I thought what he meant was if the load supplied doesn't require GFCI protection that not connecting the neutral pigtail still leaves you with overcurrent protection but not GFCI protection - and is why I said it is an expensive way of doing it.
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Personally, I think leaving the pigtail unconnected will cause the GFCI to trip immediately when turned on. Even with no load attached.
 
480sparky said:
Personally, I think leaving the pigtail unconnected will cause the GFCI to trip immediately when turned on. Even with no load attached.
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I have taken a 2 pole QO GFCI breaker and put it to several test scenarios before, I was curious at the time what happens to a hot tub and GFCI protection should you lose a feeder ungrounded conductor or even the neutral. From what I remember, I am pretty certain it will "set" whether there is a neutral or not, (in fact it will "set" while holding it in your hand and no voltage is applied to anything) as well as set whether there is missing voltage on either ungrounded conductor. IIRC the "GFCI component" is powered by one pole and the neutral, but the thing is like a non GFCI breaker in the fact that if the handle is in the "on" position the contacts are closed whether there is any voltage or not.

No 120 volts to the GFCI circuitry and there is no way for it to trip on any GFCI function. Still will trip on thermal-magnetic function though.
 
We use GFCI breakers all the time for temp lighting and simply disconnect the neutral pigtail.
 
480sparky said:
How do the lights turn on if the neutral is disconnected?

Are are you using 208/240 HID?
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They are simply using the breaker, not the GFCI function. The circuit neutral is landed as it would be in any non GFCI circuit.

Roger
 
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