[Shop-talk] GFCI tripping

[Doug Braun]

In my old house, I tried using a 12-volt radio power
supply plugged into a GFI outlet, and the GFI always
tripped after a minute or so.  When plugged into
another GFI outlet (the same brand of GFI!) it worked
fine.

Nothing else would trip the flaky outlet, not even a
table saw or a MIG welder.  And both outlets tested OK
and I was quite sure there were no problems with the
wiring in the garage.

In my current house, there were two GFIs above a
countertop with a sink.  They were probably less than
10 years old, and they had both failed: the test
button did nothing.

The moral of the story:  Those GFIs can get flaky.

Doug


--- cornerexit <cornerexit at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, I ended up running a long extension cord over
> to another outlet in the
> shop. This specific outlet itself is a non-gfci but
> it is "protected" by a
> gfci outlet that is further upstream in that
> particular circuit. I was able
> to run the treadmill off this non gfci outlet and
> using an extension cord
> with no problems, and it did not trip the downstream
> gfci outlet.