Help!! Eb8 blowing gfci

[Balz3352]

Hey guys. Last night was watching tv gear a pop from another room think nothing of it and later go over and notice moonlights are off? Weird. Go to apex everything is set ok correctly.

See the amps the eb8 is pulling and it peaked at 94. 2!! what the heck. Exactly midnight.

Turn off all the led components and the amps drop. They're all over the place. Turn off for a bit and just peak and trough see pictures.

First pic is of normal cycle for 2 days then the incident.

This pic is closeup of the incident.

This is when I found out it was the gfci

Now i have all the plugs turned off instead of auto (scheduled off) at this time. Now its unplugged from the wall still saying it's pulling 18.9 amps.

Only thing plugged into this eb8 are lights. 3 250watt metal halides, 2 80watt t5, and my 2 diy rapidled acitinic supplements with a vdm. At the time of the pop everything scheduled off except my actinic down at 10% for 3 hours then off.


Gfci is dedicated 20a outlet for the tank this eb8 is the only thing plugged into it. Brand new set up for the tank. Everything was working perfectly on schedule for a month. Nothing has changed schedule or plug wise.

Please help!!

 

[Pruett-nc]

How old is the gfi and that is alot of amps imo.

 

[Balz3352]

Brand new...

 

[Balz3352]

How old is the gfi and that is alot of amps imo.

Forgot to tag

 

[Pruett-nc]

Well you might need to change out . Could be faulty from the factory . That just seems alot of amps to me .

 

[Balz3352]

Well you might need to change out . Could be faulty from the factory . That just seems alot of amps to me .

I know it is. Like I said above it had been working perfectly with the full load for 3 weeks. Max amps during oeak when all my halides are on and my leds is 8 and change. I don't understand at all. Dang. I have a inquiry with neptune.

 

[slief]

To me it sounds like something that is plugged into the EB8 is failing and causing excessive current draw. Maybe one of the LED's drivers/power supply or a ballast from one of your halides or T5's. I would unplug everything from the EB8 and plug things in one at a time and see what the Amp reading is from the EB8 for each device. That should help you narrow down the culprit. I would also verify that the amp draw is 0 with everything disconnected. If it's not, take a look in the comprehensive reference manual. There are instructions for calibrating the EB8's amp calibration which is really simple but does require using a PC and telnet which is a command line windows software tool.

 

[Balz3352]

To me it sounds like something that is plugged into the EB8 is failing and causing excessive current draw. Maybe one of the LED's drivers/power supply or a ballast from one of your halides or T5's. I would unplug everything from the EB8 and plug things in one at a time and see what the Amp reading is from the EB8 for each device. That should help you narrow down the culprit. I would also verify that the amp draw is 0 with everything disconnected. If it's not, take a look in the comprehensive reference manual. There are instructions for calibrating the EB8's amp calibration which is really simple but does require using a PC and telnet which is a command line windows software tool.

How long should I leave each component plugged in for. Also should I turn the actual outlet on in fusion?

 

[slief]

How long should I leave each component plugged in for. Also should I turn the actual outlet on in fusion?

Make sure you are reading 0 amps before you plug any devices in. If you are not reading 0 amps on the EB8, then recalibrate the EB8 to zero out the amps. Calirbation instructions can be found on page 139 of this manual.
https://www.neptunesystems.com/downloads/docs/Comprehensive_Reference_Manual.pdf

Once you have confirmed that you are reading 0 amps with nothing plugged into the EB8, plug one device in at a time and turn the outlet on. The go to Fusion or the Classic web interface and see what the current draw is. It shouldn't take but a minute to get a current reading. Once you get a reading, make a note of it, turn the outlet off and remove that device. Then plug the next device in and turn the outlet on and repeat until you have tested all devices or until you find something that is glaringly out of the norm. A 250 watt halide should draw under 2.3 maps at 110v. If you don't find anything odd, I would repeat the process and leave the devices on longer this time. Start with the oldest of the devices.

 

[Balz3352]

All components plugged directly into gfci individually work without issue

 

[jsker]

Replace the plug before you do anything else.

 

[jsker]

Also then, there are certain outlet to use for certain equipment requirements. I think 6 and 8 are static and the only shut off and on. My eb 4 is also all static and I am have an issue setting up my ato since it is low power. You might want to check the manual as @slief suggested and move you light to a different outlet on the bar.

 

[slief]

All components plugged directly into gfci individually work without issue

Ballasts have a weird way of going bad and don't necessarily spike immediately but instead will spike once they have heated up. It could also be the GFCI but given the current spike in your graph, that leads me to think that something connected to the EB is failing. Another test would be to plug one device in at a time and do a test for stray voltage in the water. It's possible that something is leaking voltage which can cause the GFCI to trip. You would need a multimeter to test for that. You could plug a few items into the power bar and leave them on and monitor the power draw via the graphs. If you see increased draw, unplug one device at a time until you see which device drops the power consumption more than you would expect at normal operation levels. As I said, a 250 watt device should draw just under 2.3a.

 

[Balz3352]

Only lights on this eb8 so I dont see how there could be stray voltage.

Even if the ballast went bad. Would this happen as it did? My halides turn off at 1600 and the peak was at 0000.


Also would the ballast turn on if it was bad? I just plugged individually all halides turned on. (sorry brand new to halides)

 

[Balz3352]

So should I try to recalibrate the eb8 if it's bouncing from 0-0.1?

 

[slief]

So should I try to recalibrate the eb8 if it's bouncing from 0-0.1?

No.. That is fine as it sits.

 

[slief]

Only lights on this eb8 so I dont see how there could be stray voltage.

Even if the ballast went bad. Would this happen as it did? My halides turn off at 1600 and the peak was at 0000.


Also would the ballast turn on if it was bad? I just plugged individually all halides turned on. (sorry brand new to halides)

Ballasts can still go bad while keeping lights on. It just depends on what is failing in the ballast. This can be said about both MH and T5's. Lights don't normally transfer voltage unless there is some path for electricity to the water and or in case where ground probes are use. If a ballast is shorting out, it could feed voltage back through the ground and through other devices into the water including the ground probe. While I doubt that is happening, it is possible. GFCI's don't usually trip from current. They trip from a fault of some sort or differential voltage. The fact that it tripped and you appear to be having a huge inadvertent current draw leads me to think that something is failing, thus my suggestions for trouble shooting.

 

[Balz3352]

T5s 1.4 amps
250w Metal halide left 1.2 amps (250-400 lumitec)
250w Metal halide middle 1.8-2.1 amps (150-250 lumitec)
250w Metal halide right 1.9-2.1 amps (150-250 galaxy)
Led left 0.5 amps
Led right 0.5 amps
Both led 80%

 

[Balz3352]

All plugged in but off 0 amps
Both leds 1.2 amps
Leds and t5s 2.2-2.5 amps
Led and halides 5.8-6.7 amps (mostly 6.6-6.7)
All lights 8.0-8.2 amps


Of course everything is working now.


It seems as though the eb8 was reset or something when I unplugged it from the wall this am.

But it's concerning that I can't identify the issue because there obviously is one.

 

[cope413]

No chance you're actually pulling 94a unless something is shorting/blown, and even then, the EB8 is only rated for 15a. If the 94a reading is accurate, that would have to be for a a few milliseconds at most, because the EB8 breaker trips at 15a (im not sure how fast of a breaker it is, but I would guess it's not too fast or too slow - probably moderate), and none of those devices, if properly functioning, would pull that kind of load - even for that short amount of time.