Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Shorting out pond pump

I have 1/2 horse fountain with a time and 2 100 watts lights. I shut it down for a few days to kill some weeds and when i started it back up it popped the GFI. Now when I plug it back in it will run from 1 to 3 minutes and it pops the GFI. I have changed the plug in location and disconnected the light circuit and observed no improvement. The pump itself seems to be running smoothly with out restriction. Any suggestions?

when you say you changed the plug in location, do you mean you replaced the GFI plugs that were tripping, with new GFI plugs or a regular plug?

i recently learned if you have two GFI protected circuits plugged into each other, they can trip each other. dont know if that helps you.


edited post.....my bad....hey djmac, welcome to PondBoss. hopefully someone more electrically "handy" can chime in.

Hi djmac, it sounds like you have a bad situation. If you replaced the old GFCI with a new one and it still tripped you have a ground fault somewhere or your are getting water or moisture in your wires. You should inspect your wiring as good as possible and look for cuts or insulation breakdown. It doesn't take much to trip a GFCI. What you are looking for could be small. Hope this helps

What surprised me was I expected a GFCI trip to be quick and immediate. I am not sure if taking form 1 to 3 minutes to trip is important or not. In any case I will have to go over my wiring very carefully and see whats up. Perhaps the pump case is allowing moisture in? Just to clarify some of the other questions: I have not plugged it in to a non protected circuit yet but I have replaced the GFCI.

djmac,

Yes, if moisture has entered the pump housing (can) then that will trip the breaker. What may be happening is the motor begins to becom overheated in turn this increases the amp draw. This may be enough to trip your GFI after 3 min.