GFCI

Our house is 7 years old and there's a GFCI outlet (always on) installed in our garage. I wanted to tap into the GFCI outlet to have electricity for the new fluorescent lights I installed in the garage. I didn't want to tear up the drywall so all I did was take an old heavy duty extension cord and cut-off the female side, stripped the wires and connect to the new outlet and plugged the male side of the extension cord to the GFCI outlet. After doing so, I tested to see if the new outlet would provide power and it did, also checking with a tester and everything was ok. I then proceeded to connect the new outlet to the switch (middle of the run) that controls the fluorescent lights using 14/2 NM gauge wiring. Every step of the way, I made sure the wiring was done properly by using the tester. Now after all this was done, I plugged the extension cord to the GFCI outlet and turned on the lights using the switch. And long behold, I have light in the garage. However, once in a while (and it seems to be random), when I turn-off the lights using the switch, the GFCI would trip. Then I would have to reset and all is well again. I read in previous posting (back in

2000), someone had a similar problem, but his GFCI was tripping when the lights were turned on. And it would seem that if I did the wiring incorrectly, the GFCI would also trip when I turn on the lights NOT when I turn them off. And again, it would be random. Also, to check if the extension cord was the culprit, I changed the wiring using 14/2 NM gauge, and the problem still exists. What did I do wrong? Is the GFCI that sensitive to detect a very small variance?

Thanks.

Reply to
Sonny
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Did you use a new switch? Sounds like some voltage is draining to ground...

Mike

Reply to
Mike

Mike,

Thanks for the reply. Yes I did, but if some voltage is draining to ground, wouldn't that indicate that the switch is not properly grounded? But when I tested the wiring with a tester, all seems to be ok. I've read from other postings that it's not really recommended connecting fluorescent lights in the same GFCI wiring because of the ballast or something like that.

Reply to
Sonny

Here's an interesting post with a guy that never experienced a GFCI trip with all sorts of appliances, including fluorescent fixtures:

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To answer your question: if voltage is draining to ground, you have a short somewhere. Doesn't necessarily mean that your switch is not grounded. If you had a bad switch that was leaking current to its metal frame, which wasn't grounded, you'd most likely get zapped. Here's how a GFCI looks internally (you can infer operation from this):

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I'm not too familiar with ballast internals. Sorry. Perhaps your GFCI is too sensitive?

Mike

ground...

Reply to
Mike

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