Blowing Gcfi

[jd boy]

so we installed this pond last year, and it ran great for a year. Now, all of the sudden she calls and says the pump won't stay running. It is an aquascape 4500 in one of their skimmers.

i tried all the obvious stuff (check for obstructions, spun the impellor)

Does anyone have any reason why this pump would be tripping the reset in the outlet?

[TLS]

Somewhere in your wiring from your GFCI to your pump (or the pump itself) you have an open ground. That or the outlet is faulty. They're not circuit breakers, they're ground fault interrupters.

[jd boy]

if that were the case (an open ground) i would think it would have done this from the first minute we plugged it in. Why would it just start all of the sudden?

This particular outlet is run on it's own circuit.

[Dirty Water]

Originally Posted by jd boy

if that were the case (an open ground) i would think it would have done this from the first minute we plugged it in. Why would it just start all of the sudden?

This particular outlet is run on it's own circuit.

Condesation may have caused the pump to begin to ground out on its casing. I'd pull the pump and redo all the wiring connections.

[jd boy]

wiring connections? This is an aquascape pump that is pre-wired and plugged directly into a dedicated gfci outlet.

[freddyc]

GFI's are still rated at a certain amperage....do you know what the actual load is??? A loose connection anywhere will cause the increase in current...or oxidized connectors will act like a resistor and reduce voltage, causing higher amperage.

Check continuity between all the wiring and pump /motor casing. If this is run on its own circuit, check the breaker in the box.... check voltage at the pump itself, and finally, eliminate the GFI and go directly to the pump to find out if the GFI is faulty. Its likely theres a grounding problem but you gotta do these steps to narrow it down first.

Is there anything but the pump in the circuit?? Make sure the homeowner didn't play around with it and re-connect it wrong too...people usually fool around before calling!

[n2h20]

hi there.. you said it was about a year later and now trips the GFI? Does it trip the gfi as soon as you reset it or run for a while then trip it? f it takes a while i would say the pump is dying or deffective. as least that has been the case in my experience

[robhumit]

It's a bad pump. I had the same proplem. there was a problem with the 4500s last year. your dealer should know about it.

Rob

[BobR]

DITTO - Bad Pump

My AquaScape 7500 ran without problem for +- 3 months then the GFI started popping, plugged the pump into another GFI circuit and it also popped off.. Pump would run when plugged into a normal (non GFI) circuit till the unit heated up and the internal over temp switch again shut down the pump.

Dealer warrantied with a new unit - no more problems.

BobR

[BGTIME]

did you try plugging it into another outlet? That should tell ya which is broke.

the 4500 and 7500 had some problems. I went through 5 7500's before they sent me 2 working units.