I installed a new Xantrex
Prosine 2 on my
boat early last season. It worked flawlessly until September, when ground faults started tripping the boat's master breaker. This correlated to closure of the Prosine's AC bypass relay. No problem if the ground return to the AC
power source is lifted, but that's certainly not a safe solution. So far, the only response from Xantrex is that the AC
power is "dirty" and the unit is shunting the excessive "dirt" to ground.
Well, I've had it powered at multiple
marinas, from the boatyard power, and now on my workbench. Same problem everywhere but the workbench. I sampled the ground return
current, finding limited residual
noise at idle and around 2½ mA of 26 kHz switching
noise when the unit is
charging. But I also discovered a spike of ground
current, when the bypass relay closes, approaching 1A. This is really short and only observable via a digital
storage 'scope, but probably enough to trip the boat's GFCI protection. I e-mailed a complete set of DSO
screen dumps to Xantrex, but no response so far.
Has anyone else had a ground fault issue with the
Prosine 2?