GFCI outlet tripped two days in a row

Treefer32 · Apr 9, 2021

So, I've had an outlet that controls my lights, mp40s and gyres, the whole EB8 that's plugged in trigger the breaker not the GFCI....

I also have a dehumidifier plugged into the outlet. It had flipped off sometime this morning. I turned the breaker off and back on and everything is fine. No sparking, the outlet didn't flip back off and everything is fine. I was just looking at my apex and I see where the outlet flipped off, there was a massive jump on the apex amperage reading. It went from 5 amps to 82.4 amps then down to 0 amps....

Umm?? What and why would 82 amps be drawn? For the Apex to detect the amperage draw it had to be from something plugged into the EB8 I would assume? No? I was thinking maybe the dehumidifier was drawing too much power on one circuit. But, anyone explain why 82 amps would have been drawn through the EB 8. Nothing is wet. I've done nothing to get anything wet. The only things in that outlet that are in the water are a SKimz S18 powerhead and two Gyre XF 350s. The lights are also attached to that outlet, but, those are 14" above the tank... Is it a misread? Or power surge maybe? I'm out of town Sunday to Tuesday and really don't want to worry about an 80 amp spike burning the house down...

_AV · Apr 9, 2021

So was the dehumidifier plugged into the EB8? If so, not a good idea. It's essentially an air conditioner unit with a compressor motor which has very high starting current. They usually have a starting capacitor as well, if the capacitor fails, current surge at start is even greater.

Also, is your Apex head unit powered by the same EB8 or is it on a separate power supply?
82A spike, if it was real, would have probably fried the EB8 and certainly tripped the built in circuit breaker. I suspect that the spike is artificial and is caused by the fact that the EB8 lost power, but Apex head unit is still running and registering erroneous readings due to the data being corrupted when the connection to the EB8 is interrupted.

Treefer32 · Apr 9, 2021

_AV said:
So was the dehumidifier plugged into the EB8? If so, not a good idea. It's essentially an air conditioner unit with a compressor motor which has very high starting current. They usually have a starting capacitor as well, if the capacitor fails, current surge at start is even greater.

Also, is your Apex head unit powered by the same EB8 or is it on a separate power supply?
82A spike, if it was real, would have probably fried the EB8 and certainly tripped the built in circuit breaker. I suspect that the spike is artificial and is caused by the fact that the EB8 lost power, but Apex head unit is still running and registering erroneous readings due to the data being corrupted when the connection to the EB8 is interrupted.

No, the dehumidifier was plugged into the same outlet as the EB8, but the EB 8 was in one recipticle and the dehumidifier in the other. The main unit is plugged into a different outlet on a different circuit. That also has a separate EB 8 that runs the critical systems - such as return pump, heaters, skimmer, and turf scrubber. This way if one of the outlets trip, it's not as critical, though ideally the heaters would be split between the two EB 8s to increase redundancy.

That said, the EB8s are split and the head unit is separate from the one that's tripping. The display is on the one that tripped. But, the display is all working as well as the EB8 after resetting the breaker. So, weird. . . . I don't know why the Apex would report a 84 amp surge. Never ever had that happen in three years of this setup.

amazongb · Apr 9, 2021

Are you heater(s) plugged into the EB8?

vetteguy53081 · Apr 9, 2021

unplug what you believe offers the highest draw and see if it trips again. If no more-you found it. If it does it again, plug back in and repeat with next component.
The only troubling concern is if it is two components causing this

_AV · Apr 9, 2021

Treefer32 said:
No, the dehumidifier was plugged into the same outlet as the EB8, but the EB 8 was in one recipticle and the dehumidifier in the other. The main unit is plugged into a different outlet on a different circuit. That also has a separate EB 8 that runs the critical systems - such as return pump, heaters, skimmer, and turf scrubber. This way if one of the outlets trip, it's not as critical, though ideally the heaters would be split between the two EB 8s to increase redundancy.

That said, the EB8s are split and the head unit is separate from the one that's tripping. The display is on the one that tripped. But, the display is all working as well as the EB8 after resetting the breaker. So, weird. . . . I don't know why the Apex would report a 84 amp surge. Never ever had that happen in three years of this setup.

That makes sense. Your head unit is on a different circuit, so it was on when the EB8 got disconnected on another circuit. When this happens there is a data corruption occurs and the head unit receives a bad value showing the spike. This is not a big deal and has been reported many times before.
However, figuring out what's been tripping the breaker is a bigger problem and is worth investigating.