[RE-wrenches] Square D GFCI's and Magnum SW inverter

greg at remotepowerinc.com greg at remotepowerinc.com
Sun Nov 1 16:38:56 PST 2009


Wrenches,

I installed a Magnum 4048AE inverter a couple months ago.  It has a SEARCH
problem dealing with the 5 or 6 circuits that have GFCI receptacles. When
the CB's for these circuits are on, if you set the search mode at 30 watts
or less the inverter stays on all the time.  If you set it at 50 watts
(the next available setting) it stays off unless you turn on something
relatively large.  A CF isn't going to do it.

The GFCI's are at least 10 years old.  I was going to replace them with
new ones but all the new ones I've seen so far have an led on them so you
can tell if they're functional, so I haven't tried them.  Does anyone know
if these new GFCI's with the idiot lights use enough power to screw up the
search mode on inverters or if it's so tiny it hardly matters?  Also,
anyone have any luck with using gfci breakers instead?  This is a SQ D
panel.

Any light you can shed on this one for me would be great.  It's a 2 hour
round trip to this place.

By the way, they used to have an old SW2512 that never had any trouble
with search mode - same house and same circuits.

Best,

Greg




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