Electrical Assistance

[alexsbuddy]

My son recently acquired a 2011 Keystone 343RL. He built a lot for it with 50 amp service...50 amp gfci breaker load center with a 50 amp rv receptacle. In the load center he has the nuetrals and the grounds bonded and has the gfci breaker white pigtail connected to the bonded nuetral/ground bar.

Here's the problem....when he plugs the rv power cord into the receptacle the breaker trips. It only trips when he plugs in the rv power cord.

Any ideas what is causing this? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[wiredgeorge]

Originally Posted by alexsbuddy

My son recently acquired a 2011 Keystone 343RL. He built a lot for it with 50 amp service...50 amp gfci breaker load center with a 50 amp rv receptacle. In the load center he has the nuetrals and the grounds bonded and has the gfci breaker white pigtail connected to the bonded nuetral/ground bar.

Here's the problem....when he plugs the rv power cord into the receptacle the breaker trips. It only trips when he plugs in the rv power cord.

Any ideas what is causing this? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

What is a 50A GFCI breaker load center? A 50A trailer will have two legs and each will be on its own circuit breaker and not sure what this has to do with ground fault circuit. One of the legs will connect to a GFCI breaker and downstream an out let will be a GFCI receptacle and the others on that circuit will become GFCI. It is usually a 15A leg.

[workinonit]

Does your son understand how 50 amp RVs are actually wired? Knowing this is critical in order to get everything wired properly. Does he have the RV on a 50 amp GFI?

[NH_Bulldog]

I am wondering about a conflict with a GFCI and bonding the neutral to ground.

[flybouy]

Originally Posted by alexsbuddy

My son recently acquired a 2011 Keystone 343RL. He built a lot for it with 50 amp service...50 amp gfci breaker load center with a 50 amp rv receptacle. In the load center he has the nuetrals and the grounds bonded and has the gfci breaker white pigtail connected to the bonded nuetral/ground bar.

Here's the problem....when he plugs the rv power cord into the receptacle the breaker trips. It only trips when he plugs in the rv power cord.

Any ideas what is causing this? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Does the breaker trip from an overload or is the breaker gfci tripping? Those are 2 different issues. You do not need a gfci breaker on a subpanel. Sometimes a gfi outlet (in the camper) will cause issues with a gfci that the trailer is plugged into. This often happens when folks use an adapter to plug a trailer into a 15 Amp gfi breaker in their garage or outside house receptical.

[Gkri]

Originally Posted by flybouy

Does the breaker trip from an overload or is the breaker gfci tripping? Those are 2 different issues. You do not need a gfci breaker on a subpanel. Sometimes a gfi outlet (in the camper) will cause issues with a gfci that the trailer is plugged into. This often happens when folks use an adapter to plug a trailer into a 15 Amp gfi breaker in their garage or outside house receptical.

The house has the neutral bonded to ground. There can only be one place for the neutral to be bonded. All sub-panels, and the trailer is considered a sub-panel to your main home panel, will be un-bonded. Remove the trailer bond. When running from a generator, the neutral needs to be bonded to the ground at the generator.

[alexsbuddy]

Got it all sorted out. At the service pole where he installed the meter base, load center (breaker box), and receptacle, he replaced the 50 amp two pole gfci breaker in the load center with a regular 50 amp two pole breaker and all is well. Definitely was a conflict with using the gfci breaker in the load center that had a bonded nuetral/ground bar.

Appreciate the comments and advice. Wishing you all a wonderful holiday.

[rlh1957]

Take the GFCI portion out of the loop.
You can’t have rig connected through a GFCI or it will pop.

Go from your service panel with a 50A breaker to the 50A RV receptical. You can put a disconnect switch at the receptical.

Same would happen when plugging RV into 20A garage GFCI

What is a 50A GFCI anyway?

[JRTJH]

Originally Posted by rlh1957

Take the GFCI portion out of the loop.
You can’t have rig connected through a GFCI or it will pop.

Go from your service panel with a 50A breaker to the 50A RV receptical. You can put a disconnect switch at the receptical.

Same would happen when plugging RV into 20A garage GFCI

What is a 50A GFCI anyway?

The OP, in the post directly above yours, said he had solved his problem by removing the 50A GFCI breaker and replacing it with a conventional 50 amp breaker.

To answer your question about what is a 50A GFCI? it's a 50A GFCI Circuit Breaker. Here's a photo of one:

[firestation12]

The NEC allows the main service panel to have the neutral lugs and ground lugs to be bonded, but on any sub panels like the one in question, joining the neutral and grounding wires at the new panel, would be a violation. When a ground wire downstream from a GFCI touches a neutral wire, the GFCI can react by tripping.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/ZykgF77KnSWmdeRg/?

[LHaven]

The reason you never use a GFCI shore outlet for an RV is because an RV contains its own GFCI outlets and they have an unfortunate interaction.

GFCI outlets are required by code to run an automatic self-test when they power up. The RV outlet knows it is self-testing, so it's happy... but the shore outlet does NOT know there is another outlet self-testing on its circuit, and interprets the test as a real fault, so it pops.

In general, never daisy-chain GFCI circuits for this reason.

[rlh1957]

My post was actually made before OP post appeared. But thanks for your unnecessary point!

And I already know what a GFCI breaker is as well as electrical engibeering.
Mine was a question to the OP.

[NH_Bulldog]

Originally Posted by rlh1957

My post was actually made before OP post appeared. But thanks for your unnecessary point!

Actually, the OP posted his solution 6 DAYS before you posted TODAY, so unless you are using a dial-up 14k internet connection, the only other explanation is that you never bothered to read the thread before you weighed in.

[Don77]

Originally Posted by rlh1957

Take the GFCI portion out of the loop.
You can’t have rig connected through a GFCI or it will pop.

Go from your service panel with a 50A breaker to the 50A RV receptical. You can put a disconnect switch at the receptical.

Same would happen when plugging RV into 20A garage GFCI

What is a 50A GFCI anyway?

I hook mine up all the time at home to GFI protected outside 20 amp outlet with no problems at all, Summer and Winter.

Don

[ToddCarey]

I am an Electrical Professional Engineer and a GFI breaker should NEVER be used to feed an RV. You need to understand what I two pole GFI breaker actually does. It literally measures very quickly and accurately the load on each leg of the 2 pole breaker. As long as they remain balanced (no stray currents got lost out in the load) the breaker holds. At the first imbalance it very quickly disconnects the load. The RV has two 50A one pole loads, and does not even have any 2 pole loads, so the 50A 2 pole GFI will NEVER have a balanced load.

[workinonit]

It would run on a single pole 20 amp GFI breaker unless that breaker doesn't play well with one of the GFIs on the RV. I can't imagine why anyone would have a double 50 GFI in a panel anyway. For that matter a double anything GFI.