Charging keeps blowing circuit breaker

That is odd.

 

My first reaction would be to wait and see if it does it again. Maybe try it at a time when you can monitor it and plug it in elsewhere to finish charging if necessary.

I think it's most likely that it had been just barely not tripping before. Even though Toyota says to plug it in to a gfci outlet (and that is wise because it will protect you from the cable between the outlet and the evse circuitry which has its own gfc), there is something in that evse circuitry that apparently leaks to ground a tiny bit. I think it might be the ground fault protection built into the evse that frightens the gfci receptacle. It's just enough that some gfci outlets will trip and some will not. I suspect that yours is right on the edge for sensitivity.

My cheap gfci outlet at home will trip every time I try to use it to charge. The gfci at work has never tripped. One of these days, I'll get around to replacing it with a good Pass& Seymore.

 

Can you try another GFCI outlet long term?
Any other issues on that circuit? Check the outlet to make sure nothing has gotten loose.

 

You know, if this was my situation, I'd yank that GFI right out of there forever and install a heavy duty regular outlet. Disclaimer: ...that said, you might have some stray ghost current or a iffy ground somewhere in the line too.

 

I'd plug into a different outlet on a separate circuit to determine if the fault lies with the garage circuit. That's how I troubleshooted the error was with the garage GFCI and not the EVSE. Also keep in mind that you can change your charge current to 8 A to see if it remedies the situation.

 

Set your charging rate to 6 amps for 115 volt receptacles, otherwise it will draw too many amps and pop the circuit breaker. It is in the car setup under charging rate. All this is in the manual

 

I would do a little experimentation with your house circuit and find out if you have more than one GFCI on that circuit. I've seen instances where GFCIs will trip for no reason because of chatter from another GFCI.

 

Eighty percent of the breaker value is generally considered to be the safe limit. I've been charging mine for months pulling 13 amps on a 20 amp breaker and had no problems, nor should I have problems with that. On a 15 amp breaker, it's marginal, but probably OK if it's not a very high duty cycle.

However, this isn't a breaker that's tripping. You could set it to a half an amp and not affect what the gfci does. Totally different kind of protection.

 

It is actually fairly unusual in older homes and even in new homes to have GFCI circuit breakers, and I wouldn't recommend counting on one even if I had it. The idea behind a GFCI outlet is that it is really close to the source of grounding and therefore flips rather quickly. The time it takes for the ground fault to reach a circuit breaker is likely too long, not to mention it is possible it will never trip because there is too much wire between the source of the fault and the circuit breaker which could result in the power bleeding off before it trips the issue, by then you may be toasted anyway so it is too late to matter.

Also, it is never a good idea to recommend that someone wire their home in a way that is against code. Even if it is generally safe, there are reasons the electrical code is set in states. Breaking with that code could leave you in big trouble.

Your problem may be in the kitchen lights. It is possible something is badly grounded in your kitchen lights. Have you only noticed it popping when you have also used the kitchen lights? Are there multiple switches controlling the lights? It is a little unusual to have a set of lights wired on the same circuit as a GFCI outlet so you may need to have someone take a look to see if maybe ground was improperly wired for your lights.

 

It may be a regional (southern?) difference. The home I mentioned was built in the 1970s and have one GFCI breaker for the bathrooms. The 1980s house we are in now has one for the bathrooms & one for the attached garage.

 

It's the electrical codes that were in effect at the time and location of the construction. Our electrical code is a moving target. The house we built in 1998 had 2 GFCI's in the whole house (bathrooms). The house we built in 2004 only 3 miles away, same city, similar size has 9 CFGI's. One CFGI plug can effect lots of near by outlets/switches. It depends on how everything is daisy chained local to the CFGI. Yes, they can be a pain.

 

That is a good point to mention: you can have many ordinary outlets daisy-chained after the GFCI. Our newer home (5 yrs old) has one GFCI for all the outlets in both bathrooms, and has one for four outlets in the kitchen. The "downstream" outlets have little tags on them that say "GFCI protected".

 

GFs work by sensing an inbalance of current flowing in the hot line versus out the neutral line. They are designed to work very fast. The charger for your Pri might be honestly dumping a few milliamps out the ground wire and your GF is sensing that. Of course, your GF could be old and tired. I would plug the Pri into a non-GF circuit and rest well. If you dont have one out back, then install one next to the GF. Of course, make sure you ONLY use it for the Pri.

 

Exactly! I think very few non-electricians know what a gfi is or how it works.

 

LOL You realize GFI == Ground Fault Interrupter and GF == GirlFriend?
Your GF could be too old and tired??

 

As has been pointed out, the purpose of a GFCI is not to deal with excessive current loads; that is the purpose of a fuse or circuit breaker. A GFCI is designed to shut off the power in less than 3/10 of a second or so if it detects a current difference between the "hot" and "neutral" lines on the order of 10 thousandths of an amp or so. This difference means that the current is going somewhere other than between the hot and neutral, like, say, through a human being to ground. The primary objective is to act fast enough and be sensitive enough to prevent cardiac arrest.

 

Where is that setting?? I can't find it