roger wiegand
05-11-2015, 4:09 PM
I operate a fairground organ that is mounted on a trailer. The organ blower is controlled with a Baldor variable frequency drive (1-phase 120V input to 3-phase 208V output) and I find that it trips most GFCI outlets (about one in five don't trip at all, on the rest it's instant and 100% of the time). I don't have a choice about what I plug into, as I'm at the mercy of the venue and their rules. Baldor suggests that "RFI/EMC filters or isolation transformers may help" (emphasis mine). They won't, of course provide any specific information about what components that might entail or how to wire it up.
Do any of you have experience with this in garage or basement workshops and have specific recommendations about what might work? In most discussions I've found on this, the consensus is "wait until the inspector goes away then use a regular outlet rather than GFI", or hard wire the connection. Unfortunately, depending on the venue and electrician involved, I often don't have that choice and get stuck running my generator for days. I'm not an electrical engineer, so some of the discussions of RFI/EMC filtering I've found are way over my head, and may well be irrelevant as they relate to computers and audio systems not 1.5 hp blower motors.
Thanks.
Do any of you have experience with this in garage or basement workshops and have specific recommendations about what might work? In most discussions I've found on this, the consensus is "wait until the inspector goes away then use a regular outlet rather than GFI", or hard wire the connection. Unfortunately, depending on the venue and electrician involved, I often don't have that choice and get stuck running my generator for days. I'm not an electrical engineer, so some of the discussions of RFI/EMC filtering I've found are way over my head, and may well be irrelevant as they relate to computers and audio systems not 1.5 hp blower motors.
Thanks.