Help me Make my GCFI Stop Tripping

P.S.: Is the outlet on a circuit that has a ground-fault 'breaker'? Those have a tendency to go bad as well.
 
Have you tried a HV insulation test ?

If the outlet isn't tripping for other devices I would suspect some leakage from worn or failed insulation.

Good idea as you said to thoroughly clean out any duct and recheck

Stu
 
Don't know much about residential wiring, but learned three things while dealing with tripping gfi's. I had to replace the gfi outside TWICE due to ants building nests and frying themselves. Also, there are weather-resistant rated gfci's available which is what I now have outside. Lastly, it turns out that if you have a gfi in your main panel or in a circuit before the gfi causing problems, the two gfi's will not play nice together. Hope this helps.
 
It is a ground fault circuit, so check between hot and ground, and neutral and ground. One of those is where the fault is in the motor. Unless it is the outlet of course. You check between hot and neutral only means your windings are ok. Lastly, make sure that the ground/frame is also connected to the power connector. GFCI's need all 3 wires, e.g. did someone cut the ground prong off?

And of course try running something else on that circuit to see if it blows as well.
 
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It turns out the bearing in the grinder spindle is fried. When I take the belt off the motor, it does not trip the GFCI.
 
Ok, but did you ohm out the others as well? And check that ground is passed through to the outlet? Load on the motor can make the ground fault worse.

When you say fried do you mean seized?
 
The bearings are not completely seized, but they are very hard to turn. I'm not concerned about the GFCI now. It looks like the problem was the excessive starting load.
 
To me it would seem prudent to finish checking out the electrical before moving to the next item. A basic tenet of troubleshooting is to change one thing at a time. If you now fix the bearings, you could very well be hiding an electrical problem that will eventually show up again.
 
I don't know if I was clear. I believe the friction from the bearings caused the GFCI to trip.
 
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