Surge Protectors

[zelmo]

I never knew that the joule rating on a surge protector was cumulative until recently. The one I had for charging the boat is old and I don’t have any idea what the rating is so I decided to replace it. I paid up for one with pretty good specs.

I wanted to decide if I wanted to change where it was mounted so I plugged the extension cord into the boat and then plugged that into the surge protector. I played around with it and when I decided where I wanted it I plugged it into the wall outlet which is GFCI. The outlet tripped.

I then reset the outlet and it stayed on. Then I read the instructions for the surge protector and found a statement that it was not intended for use with GFCI outlets as the circuitry could trip it.

I can return this and get something different or just keep using what I had before. If I get a different one I don’t want to have the same problem so what is the spec to watch for?

[bobcoy]

What are you trying to save? your charger? If you have poor power quality I suppose it might help. Or are you trying to protect from lightning? what device are you hooking up? Bob

[zelmo]

I have a 330PC and a 220PC that go through a NOCO splitter. I know that the surge protector won’t do anything for lighting and I have never had an issue with a bad supply, but I just thought better safe than sorry.

[bobcoy]

I knew you were an informed buyer! I was an electronic tech for a long time. Part of our duty's were trying to sell surge protection when it was a hot new topic(eons ago). Have seen much smoke let out of many electronics. They have their limits if you don't go BIG on joules. The prices get BIG also. The ones you see on surge protectors are not much protection. Let the buyer beware. Bob

[zelmo]

Thanks. The one I bought has a 1870 joule rating. I am going to try it one more time by having it plugged into the GFCI and then plugging it into the boat. If that doesn’t work I will decide what I want to do.

[bobcoy]

Maybe?
A GFI will trip with as little as 10 milliamps to ground. Since an mov can conduct 5000 amps to ground during a spike it can easily trip the GFI. all it takes is a small power Spike from something turning on or turning off like the AC unit. Gfi's are not compatible with surge protectors is the best way to sum it up. Now you could plug a portable GFI into the surge protector and it would work just fine. The surge protector has to be before the GFI. Gfi's protect humans from electrocution by removing the hot if even a small amount of current goes to ground.

[zelmo]

Ok. So would you say that the surge protectors that I have that do not trip the GFCI are either worn out or junk?

[bobcoy]

Possibly. If they don't detect leaks to ground, but I would think some are less sensitive. I don't think it could be used as a test of of the effectiveness of the protector. From my limited experience of GCFI they start to get false trips the more they have been tripped. As a test of the protector is concerned, not reliable as an indication. JMO

[zelmo]

I did some playing around with this.

First I unplugged the chargers with the surge protector on and plugged into the GFCI outlet. No problem.

Then I used the switch on the protector to turn it off and back on while plugged in. No problem.

Then I plugged it into the chargers. No problem.

Then I unplugged the surge protector from the outlet. The GFCI outlet tripped.

Since I first encountered this problem when plugging into the outlet with the surge protector on and plugged into the boat I didn’t try anything else. I can live with it the way it works. I just can’t plug it into the outlet or unplug it from the outlet with a load on it. Since I can use the power switch on the protector without issue that is easy.