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Laptop trips GFI
johnhh wrote:
All of my 110 outlets on the boat are protected through GFI. Whenever I plug my laptop charger in or turn on the computer with it plugged in, it trips the GFI. If I reset it a time or two or three, it will hold and work fine until the next time. Interestingly, it will even trip the GFI on a parallel circuit. I am guessing that it has something to do with the large capacitor in the charging unit charging up. Does anyone have an explanation and/or solution? thanks john All gfi protected circuit branches the same? If so, a laptop fault, potentially dangerous should be investigated by a professional. Is your laptop connected to external speakers, or other accessories, possibly interconnected with equipment on a different phase of mains power? Most laptops use only 2 wire plugs, so cannot have a current imbalance in the cableset typically the cause of gfi tripping. You may have a bad gfi. You may have a salty moist sweat stain on plug terminal, wire, grip, etc, to some earthed part of the boat. Clean the plug end with a mild detergent and dry thoroughly. If yours has a 3 wire plug, it may have a marginal leakage path from a hot terminal to the safety ground. This can be difficult to prove, as the current is so small, and it trips so fast. You could test with a 2 wire extension cord, to see if this stops the tripping. It might not be safe to use it regularly without repairing the cause. You might be best to use insulating gloves while doing this test. It seems unlikely there is an electrical contact on the case of the laptop that might be in contact with an earth or even your hand, but that too would only indicate an internal leakage through the power supply or charger, which could be lethal, if circumstances get right. As to why it might cause tripping a gfi in some other part of the power system, you got me there, buddy, unless one gfi is feeding the other, and they are just taking turns at tripping;-) I think startup current surges would not affect a gfic, first because as far as I know, they are not designed to be overcurrent circuit breakers, except insofar as safety imbalance current is concerned and second, no laptop should draw so large a surge. If so, I would suspect a resistive or reactive neutral or hot connection path. Do you have galvanic diode blockers in your shoreside earth line connector path? Do you have a wireless card in your laptop? Are you, as did a friend of mine, amazingly still alive, using a 110 v device in series with a 220 v flourescent ballast circuit? Stranger things exist in truth than in fiction. Very curious. Terry K |