WFCO Converter tripping house GFCI?

[rickst29]

Originally Posted by BrucePerens

And if something is flipping the GFI breaker, the first thing we should suspect is that current really is traveling through the safety ground, and we should really carefully eliminate that possibility before proceeding, due to the potential for safety issues.

Yes! Turn off the 120V "downstream" circuit breakers, and see if WFCO can then plug into the wall without blowing the CGFI. If the GFI doesn't trip, then there might be a dangerous wiring fault within the Fridge, or within the Hot Water Heater.

[BrucePerens]

Hi FairviewFairyFarm,

In the interest of safety, I'd like you to check things out a bit more carefully, to isolate the problem. If the GFI breaker is flipping, there really is a chance that it's trying to tell you about a safety issue.

We have this problem with RVs called "hot skin" which can give people fatal electric shocks. It starts with the sort of thing you're complaining about. Your GFI might be telling you that you are half way toward having this problem. Something else has to break to get you the rest of the way there, but of course it can.

Ground faults on the 12 volt side are not the problem. 12 volt circuits aren't wired with a separate protective ground like 120 volt ones.

In your converter there is probably a main breaker and two branch breakers. Turn on one of the branch breakers only, leave the other off. Plug into the GFI outlet. Does it trip? Turn that branch breaker off and turn on the other. Does it still trip?

If you are lucky, it will only trip with one branch breaker on. That one is the problem breaker. What is on that breaker? What doesn't work when that breaker is off? Does the converter stop charging the battery? Do some outlets stop working? Does the 'fridge not work on AC? Does the air conditioner stop working? Tell us and we'll work through the rest of the problem with you.

Do you really have an electric water heater? You can tell because there is a little black rocker switch on the lower left corner, viewed from the door on the outside. Look carefully, because it's hidden behind some pipe. It took 6 months after I bought my camper to realize that I had electric! The seller hadn't mentioned it, and if it happens to have been left on, you can get the problem you're describing. Burned out heater elements can fail "open" (safe) or "shorted" (unsafe). It is the best known cause of hot skin so it does happen sometime.

If the converter continues to charge the battery with the problem breaker OFF, it is not the fault of the WFCO converter, although there are still good reasons to replace that.

[BrucePerens]

Originally Posted by rickst29

Reactance: The transformer stores some energy, and "barfs it back" in slightly nasty ways during the switching process.

I saw the schematic for the WFCO and it's awful. Sure it could cause high frequency for an AFCI or leak current to ground.

[tentcamper]

When you say you traced it down to the converter. I'm not sure what that means?

The WFCO is a power distribution center. This is the confusion. Many times people will call it a converter. But the converter is only part of the power distribution center.

The WFCO power distribution center has two parts. First part of it is nothen more then a circuit breaker box with circuit breakers. The second part is the Converter (AC to DC converter). which develops the 12v and is used to charge the battery.

If all you did was trace it down to the 30 amp circuit breaker, it could be anything. The 30 amp breaker is the main breaker for the breaker box. If this is the case. Leave the 30 amp breaker on and turn off all the other breakers and turn on one circuit breaker at a time until you trip the GFI. Which breaker trips the GFI, anything on that circuit could be the cause of your ground fault.

If you traced it down to the DC converter, which is either a 15 or 20 amp breaker in the breaker box. It is common in the RV industry to share that breaker with some 120 AC outlets. It is so common that when WFCO makes the distribution center they have hot lead going to the converter with a pigtail on it to wire in outlets so only one wire going to the breaker to meet code. I can not remember if trailmanor uses this pigtail or cut it off and has a breaker dedicated to the converter. If it is shared with 120V outlets you need to remove the outlets wire or converter wire from the breaker and determine which trips the GFI. If it is the converter, the back side (12V circuits side) of the converter should not cause a GFI to trip, it would be in the converter or bad wiring to the converter. Most likely a converter.

I have only had a few GFI issues throughout the years with my campers. They have been in the 120V outlets with shorted black (hot) to ground and an bad fridge 120V heating element.

FYI The WFCO has an above average converter in the RV industry. In it's price point it's among the best. When the WFCO came out it many converters went out of business because of it's better battery charging methods and price. But it has the most common problem with RV converters of over charging batteries, but not as bad as the older converters. There are better converters but they have good price tag.

[BrucePerens]

There's only room for 2 branch breakers, so in general the battery charger part of the converter shares a breaker with other 120V circuits.

None of the converters available to us appear to have plug-on-neutral. So building them with modern dual-function breakers requires buying breakers with pigtails and wiring them to the neutral bar.

[tentcamper]

WFCO on the hot wire to the DC converter has a pig tail built on it from the factory. You either use the pigtail or cut it off. I have seen a lot of popup campers that use that pig tail to power the 120V outlets. I think you can have 4 or 5 branch circuit breakers with the use of the dual breakers.

[BrucePerens]

Originally Posted by tentcamper

WFCO on the hot wire to the DC converter has a pig tail built on it from the factory.

Yep. The Boondocker has a pin which I guess is meant to go into a breaker, and a wire with a wire nut on it. I would assume that all Progressive Dynamics products have that, because the Boondocker is just a Progressive Dynamics converter with supposedly-reprogrammed firmware. I have not actually verified that the firmware is any different.

I was disappointed with the Boondocker. You don't get the unit in the photo. It's very different. They "went to metal boxes" some years ago and never updated the web site. It doesn't have the fuse failure LEDs that are mentioned in the manual. It costs about $100 more than the street price of the equivalent Progressive Dynamics unit.

Were I buying another, I would probably not be dealing with Best Converter. I'm not convinced they actually add value.

[bheisser]

had a very similar issue electric box under camper (about the middle, street side) was full of water

[Padgett]

Box under the camper is probably for the AC & switches from solid core Romex to stranded for the swing arm. I put a disconnect/plug there so I could power only the AC.

BTW I use the WFCO only when travelling or using as a guest cottage. When in the grotto I disconnect the trailer and use a little float charger.

Here is my '06 panel distro.

[Bill]

The usual cause for this behavior is a burned-out heating element in the water heater, as mentioned by Commodor47. But you have eliminated that, so you have to look elsewhere. Something finally clicked in my mind, a TM experience from long ago. Rather than relate the entire experience, I will jump to the conclusion.

Within the AC Distribution compartment of the converter (any converter, not just the WFCO), you will find two square metal bars, each about 3/4" X 3/4" x 2". Each bar has a series of holes along its length, and a screw going into each hole. (See attached pic.) These are sometimes called buss bars, or terminal bars. One of them is where the neutral wires (white) from every AC circuit are connected. The other is where the ground wires (bare copper or green) from every AC circuit are connected. The ground bar is screwed directly to the sheet metal of the box, so of course it is grounded. The neutral bar is screwed down in such a way that it is insulated from the sheet metal, so of course it is not grounded.

Every circuit's ground wire must terminate at the ground bar. This includes the ground wire in the power entry cord.
Every circuit's neutral wire must terminate at the neutral bar. This includes the neutral wire in the power entry cord.
You can never connect a ground wire to the neutral bar, or a neutral wire to the ground bar.

There must be no electrical connection between the ground bar and the neutral bar! Every once in a while, a handyman will replace a mounting screw on the neutral bar without replacing the insulator, or will run a wire between the two bars, thinking it will "improve the bonding". It also guarantees that the GFI on the electric source will trip.

Could that be what is going on here?

Bill