Supplied L1 EVSE trips GFCI when plugged into car

Nissan L1 (trickle) EVSE has been working for me (waiting for Blink install).

Tried it on the brand new circuit I had installed outside for emergency guest charging, everything is good (EVSE LEDs come on, etc.) until I plug EVSE to the *car* this cause the GFCI (20A Leviton Smartlockpro Slimline) to trip. The car is on a timer charge.

The new GFCI passes its own self test and I tested it with an external tester to make sure that it is wired correctly when I installed it and retested it again. I've used the outlet for other things and it worked just fine.

Just for chuckles I bought another GFCI (different model, 20A Leviton Smartlockpro) and that one is working just fine, car is charging as I type this.

arnold

I think some GFCI outlets are more sensitive than others, so apparently your first one must have been a sensitive one.

Ingineer has written about this a few times. Some GFCIs, especially older ones, are too sensitive and will trip when the car is charging. The only thing to do when this happens is what you did...get another one.

Most GFI are set to trip around 5 ma (milli-amps), which is sometimes too low for some EV-charging equipment, vehicles, or tasks.

The GFI inside the EVSE is usually set higher, up to about 20 ma as I recall, to help solve this GFI "tripping" problem.

garygid said:

The GFI inside the EVSE is usually set higher, up to about 20 ma as I recall, to help solve this GFI "tripping" problem.

Click to expand...

Also, most EVSEs will wait a bit after they get a ground fault trip, recycle automatically, and try again, at least a few times. However, when a GFCI outlet has tripped, it has to be manually reset after every trip.