Woke up 5AM to no power fired up the old champion genset filled up with fresh 87 got the fridge and a few circuits going to watch antenna tv found out arc fault breakers aren’t happy with the choppy generator power. Wife got a shower in firing up the on demand water heater so she was happy and power was restored in about 2 hrs. While I had the oil good and hot did an oil change refilled with Valvoline full synthetic 10W-30 from an AutoZone clearance 6 years old gave the Qt a really good shaking hope I don’t kill the 15 year old champion.
Ran the old Champion genset this morning
- Thread starter DCDG
- Start date
I highly doubt it.
"arc fault circuit breakers....", another thing to Google; thanks. (different than a ground fault, I suppose?)
JTK
$100 Site Donor 2025
We recently took a trip to Puerto Rico and our Airbnb had a newish Champion tri-fuel ~7500 watt portable generator setup to run on gasoline. It was wired to a transfer switch. Worked like a champ for the pretty much daily power outages. Loud as heck though. It would run pretty much all the mini-splits, the fridge and what ever lights and outlets you needed.
Arc faults prevent fires and ground faults prevent shocks. That's the simple comparison anyway
Yes these circuits are a total pain I get it they're critical in preventing fires but are very sensitive they will trip if you pinch your 5v phone charger just right in a night stand drawer.
4wd
$50 site donor 2026
I always found that “sparkies” know code - just like builders - and install GFCI in obvious places - but not where you often plug in hand held power tools …
CAFCI breakers. my 2011 panel upgrade has them..
not on motor loads.. the specific kitchen outlet for the fridge as an example is standard breaker.
We had this issue at my last job kitchenette/break room remodel. They installed a Hisense inverter fridge and was nothing other than a standard GFCI it wasn’t happy with the inverter compressor. Would nuisance trip so out went the GFCI.
I had that problem with powerline networking.
I tried to use powerline networking as a bridge from upstairs to a wired switch in living room.
and whenever my upstairs AC would cycle the compressor "on" there was about a 10% chance it would pop the breaker.
(so it would usually pop within an hour)
That was a little hard to diagnose as I had the AC the year before no problem
and I was already using the powerline networking for a few months before it got warm enough for AC.
It was gigabit powerline networking but an older model without ground plug.. if that mattered any.
I temporarily (for a few months) ran a 100ft ethernet to the living room..
Of course since then I've 100% changed my setup.. moving most of the gear to the basement etc.
I think one way to fix that issue would be plugging those power line Ethernet jacks into an (online ups with power conditioning) but they aren’t cheap and you would need one at each Ethernet connection. Your updated setup beats that method.
it might also block or degrade the connection.. you are supposed to plug them directly into the wall.
Similar threads
