RIMS heater issue

[cmoore2]

I'm a new member and this is my first post. Ive been trolling the forums for years during the course of my brewery build...thanks to all of you that i've anonymously pilfered knowledge, ideas and tips from. So after several years in the making I completed my setup and undertook my first brew session yesterday. Too the problem. I'm mashing in an rubbermaid cooler and recirculating through a brewers hardware rims tube with a 120v, 1440 watt element. Only my rims heater and pumps are electric. About 15 minutes into the mash, the rims heater tripped my gfi. I reset and everytime the pid pushed power to the heater, the gfi popped. Im running off a dedicated 20 amp circuit. At the time the only draw was a pump, the pid and the outlet for the heater. Based on the heater and pump ratings I couldn't have been drawing more than 15 amps. When I unplug the heater the gfi doesnt pop, so its definitely the source of the problem. The element is wired and grounded properly, so as is my control bo, so Im at a loss. Any one run into this type of behavior? Let me know if more information is required.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[GotPushrods]

GFI monitors the difference between line and neutral, not the overall amperage draw. If you are leaking even a small amount of current to ground, the GFI will trip. I would start by looking for a stray wire strand touching something it shouldn't be.

 

[cmoore2]

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I know enough about electricity to be dangerous, but never realized that is what a ground fault was. Assumed it was a lack of a path to ground. So I got out my multimeter and tested for continuity between ground and all hot and neutral connections in my control box...no issues found. To eliminate a problem with my pid and ssr, I plugged a work light into my heater receptacle and and manipulated temperatures to get the light to fire. No issues there. Lastly I removed the top part of the rims tube with the element installed and plugged and looke for continuity between ground and neutral and ground and hot. No issues. I powered up the system and as soon as the element fires, it trips the gfi. Im wondering if the element could be bad? Or is this to be expected and I should not be using a gfi on the element? Any thoughts?

 

[cmoore2]

The element was bad....Im back in business