Consider the Gfgi recepticles, they would be a lot more reliable. Rona has them for like $25

Ken

Wow. Thats a big fear for me too. Wierd though. We had a fire at our LFS just recently too. Powerbar lit up. Cant remember if it was a bad powerhead or water though. Has made me rethink a few things. Just good to hear nothing went down because of it.

I know when I took over Blue World, it was a fire waiting to happen. Spent lotsa $$$ for gfgi breakers and such to protect everything/everyone.

Ken

this has me wanting to run out after work tomorrow to canadian tire and buy new powerbars... I have slight paranoia... I'm going to be a mess worrying about my house tomorrow while at work... Thank goodness it wasn't your whole house!!!

Need to do more than just rely on a GFI as SW and electricity don't mix. Need to use drip loops and position powerbars, controllers etc, where if you have a leak, the equipment won't get wet.

Also never leave powerbars or power cords on the floor and leave a drip loop.

oh good! I have the bar on the lower shelf of my stand.... I should be okay I think... now I have to get out of bed and go check! lol!

nope, only if the hot gets shorted to ground. if the hot gets shorted to common, it is not a ground fault as the power in is the same as the power out. A GFI monitors power in and power out and if they are not jiving it trips. so you have to have a short to ground. If the power bar gets wet, depending on the surface the easiest path may still be the nutral bus which means you have a heat generating short because it would have to be a full 15 amps worth befor the pannel breaker will trip.

as for powerbar/outlet/breaker. there all good, but all need to be tested once a month. cheepest is probably the outlet as you can get them at home depot for about 17 bucks. a breaker.. well your looking at 80ish bucks for that, and they still need to be tested and replaced when they go bad. the advantage of the breaker is if you have a kitchen aplication where you have to have 4 or more outlets protected it may be cheeper to use the breaker.

powerbar.. well there just as good as the other two as they still have to meet the same standard, and a test of them a few months ago in one of my wood working mags showed them to be very reliable and function as designed. I just don't know how much they are.

Steve

I know how a GFCI works. If power from the hot or neutral side ground faults it will trip. 120v is very good at finding a path to ground. To have a situation where hot and neutral are shorted without any current leaking to ground is possible but unlikely. Especially unlikely when water is doing the shorting.

in the last 8 years I have seen about 6 cases just like this one, so I would say the chance of it happening is small but possible and not that uncommon.

I do agree that it is not a normal, but alot of people think a GFI will trip no mater what, so I was just showing how a GFI which is working properly may not trip.

Steve