I thought after all this reading you'd understand why its not tripping - because there is NO or very little current flow. It depends on the type of GFCI but they usually trip at ~5mA (milli Ampere).
If you have a lower current flow than that - it wont.
gotyah. I just dont know about this. Right now, my fish should be getting shocked. But they dont seem to be. If you ground your tank it puts them right in the path of the current. The current should flow through them just like it would flow through us if we were grounded.
I understand what youre saying but 40v is alot of electrical pressure. Voltage IS your current flow pushing amps through the wire...
Well, in any case my fish seem to be doing fine with the ground probe in use.
Ty for your help, it is not being overlooked. Is there any electrical egineers in here ? lol . Ty Hannys Im going to do some more reading.
surprisingly i recieved my replacement mag drive 7 about 20 minutes ago. all i have to say is wow, that was some fast shipping. althought it was only coming from upstate NY and i live in central Jersey i still wasnt expecting it till monday. I would just like to commend the people at Danner and just say that they have excellent customer service and I will be doing business with them again. Oh, and so far with the new pump im not getting shocked! :thm:
I checked my tank voltage with my fluke meter and im getting anywhere from 30-15 volts in my tank... i wonder what it was when i was getting zapped.......
Nathane958,
Have you checked if there is any voltage between the neutral and ground on your wall outlet? If there is then you have something wired wrong or backwards. Then check the voltage of your hot compared to the neutral and ground. The neutral and ground should be directly tied togather without any measurable resistance.
- Nick
Voltage or electro motive force, emf , is the difference of potential that causes current to flow in a circuit. As justintoxicated pointed out, how much current flows is determined by the voltage and resistance. The way a GFCI works there has to be different current flow in the hot and neutral conductors in order to trip the gfci. Inside the gfci receptacle the hot and neutral run through a donut transformer and normally the magnetic fields surrounding each conductor cancels out by opposite polarity. When there is a ground fault there is more current on the hot than the neutral which is picked up by the donut transformer and trips the contacts open in the device. This is why a gfci will still work on older two-wire systems. Normally our bodies have a resistance of around 1 Megohm, if we are dry. When we get wet this resistance drops considerably. E=I x R. If voltage remains constant and resistance decreases current increases.
I was about to write something about current leakage...but you explained it in a way anybody could understand in less than 2 lines! :thm:
Just another thing to add...there's a reason that GFCI's have a test button. They can, and do malfunction. Test it with something plugged in, like a lamp that is switched on. The two common failure modes are failure to trip the circuit to open, or a "partial" trip (it's an incorrect explanation, but that is what it appears to be to the common user) where you have current leakage in the GFCI unit itself after it has tripped (i.e., your "test" lamp is partially illuminated, and very dimly at that...sometimes you need a VOM to check this, since sometimes the leakage itself will not be enough to even get a bulb filament to glow).
v/r, N-A
P.S. Mark, w/ a scrn name like wesleydnunder, I'd figure you for Australia or NZ, not Texas City. Are you guys still wildfire dry weather like us Okies?
We've gotten a little rain down here, NA, but still have the burn ban. This is all my fault. My boat broke down in june and no money to replace the transom so I haven't fished this winter. Strange coincidence...it stopped raining around then. All I have to do is plan a fishing trip to make it rain. I've been telling my wife that for 29 years and she still isn't convinced. We drove up to Austin a couple weeks ago to see our granddaughter and all the vegetation in the hill country looks brown and ready to go up. I can't remember it being this dry for so long.
LMAO at the aussie comment. I hear it all the time. I have a pond and aquarium company called Wesley Down Under. My daughter came up with the name because my first name is Wesley and I used to dive.
I've worked in electronics and electrical since '75. Got my Master Electricians Lic. in 2000 and went to work for myself. I also taught electron theory for five years in post-secondary and proprietary Electronic Technology AAS degree programs. I try to make explanations as simple as possible.
Good luck up there with the drought, dude.
Not wishing to hijack, but I think the thread has answered all of the questions....
Mark, we finally got a smattering of rain...not enough for the wheat farmers, though.
I'm fixing a fishing boat, too. Just finished beefing up the transom and installing a jackplate (so I can get into really, really shallow water, not for speed, though it will help). Just have to finish hooking up the hydraulic steering (teleflex) and get new cables for the motor control and install the rub rail.
Once I finish it, it will probably start raining non-stop. Getting a boat lake-ready in Texoma is like doing an Indian rain dance (i.e., washing the car).
