Trickle charger trips my breaker but works elsewhere

[haldir]

My trickle charger started tripping the breaker every time I plug it into my outdoor 110v outlet - before I even plug the other end of the charger into the car.

I can plug other things into the outlet and they work and don’t trip it.

I can plug the trickle charger into an outlet at work and it charges the car fine.

It’s only this charger in this outlet that doesn’t work together. Any ideas?

 

[LeftieBiker]

Welcome. By "breaker" do you mean the one in the main service panel, or a GFCI outlet breaker built into the outlet?

 

[haldir]

Built into the outlet. I plug it in and immediately hear the click and see the red light come on. I push the button to reset and it happens all again.

 

[knightmb]

My trickle charger started tripping the breaker every time I plug it into my outdoor 110v outlet - before I even plug the other end of the charger into the car.

I can plug other things into the outlet and they work and don’t trip it.

I can plug the trickle charger into an outlet at work and it charges the car fine.

It’s only this charger in this outlet that doesn’t work together. Any ideas?

By other things, do you mean like a light or fan or something that uses 1,440 watts of power like a heater set to High?

 

[LeftieBiker]

Built into the outlet. I plug it in and immediately hear the click and see the red light come on. I push the button to reset and it happens all again.

GFCI outlets will trip in conditions that are ignored by "dumb" outlets. It may be something innocuous, but I suspect that the charge cable has developed a problem that isn't yet bad enough to produce symptoms normally. The charge cable should be examined for problems, assuming that it worked with that outlet in the past. It isn't generally recommended to plug an EVSE into a GFCI, but this time it may have helped avert a problem.

The other possibility is that the outlet has developed a problem. You can try plugging other higher load things into it, and see if it trips abnormally.

 

[haldir]

Thanks. Yes it did work fine through this outlet for several months. This is the product: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089GNZ4R5/ - I don't see anything mentioned either way about GFCI.

I had tested the outlet with a three-prong fan but I'll try to find something to lug outside that will draw a lot more than ~100w to test the outlet with.

 

[LeftieBiker]

If you look at the 1 star reviews of the cable, they all (9% of the total) say that it stopped charging after a fairly short time. Did you leave it out in the rain? Apparently they aren't waterproof.