segway trips breaker when charging??

[Sblader5]

Hey,
I just got my first segway today, already been through training and all, but my segway wont charge. When we plug it in it trips the breaker. we have tested the cord and that is fine, and if we leave it plugged in and then we turn the breaker back on its seems ok, donno if its charging or not but I dont get any LEDs. Also i tried the to plug it in in power assist mode but same thing screen turns red and shuts off(think the safety shutdown). Any suggestions, already called segway.
Thanks

[fredkap]

In power assist when plugged in it is supposed to turn red and shut down. It doesn't pull enough power to trip a normal breaker. Do you have another plug on a different circuit breaker that you have tried? The most important thing you can do for your batteries is charge them 12 hours before running your machine. Make sure the plug is fully engaged, the plug in while in power assist mode shut down verifies that you are properly plugged in. If the circuit breaker trips again AND it is a good circuit than you have a rare short of some sort and the machine will need to be serviced.

Welcome to SegwayChat and hopefully you will be up and running today.

Fred

[ElectraGlide]

I cant imagine the Segway drawing enough power to trip a breaker. Are you popping a "Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter" type as found in most household bathrooms outlets, or is it a heavy duty breaker found in a breaker panel cabinet with the other household circuits ? Also is there another appliance running and plugged into that same outlet at the time you are charging the Segway.....if so, remove the Segway and plug it into a wall socket by itself and see if it continues to pop breakers.

Steve

[Sblader5]

thanks for the help guys, but the first two outlets tripped the breaker but the third one I tried worked and now were charging.
Thanks

[Sal]

First off, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!

Welcome to the club!
___________________________
Interesting... There's one socket in my house that seems to trip when I use my vacuum cleaner on it. But I know I have used my Segway through it and all is well.

HAve you tried connecting your Segway to a heavy duty powerstrip to that pesky outlet and seeing what happens?

-Sal

Think Different / Answers that Matter
www.apple.com / www.lilly.com

[GlideMaster]

Take your Segway to a friends house and see if you have the same problem if you don't then you know the problem is in your house.

<center>http://www.segwaychat.com/forum/avatars/glidemaster.gif</center>

[W9GFO]

Try plugging in a hair dryer or vacuum cleaner to that same outlet. If the hair dryer works ok, then the problem must be with the HT.

Rich H

[Sblader5]

ya thanks for the help, its been the outlet this whole time! Thanks

[Ground Loop]

Ooohhh I've been waiting to see another post like this. I posted the same back in January when I got mine. It trips the GFI outlet, not the breaker. (To trip your actual go-outside-with-a-flashlight breaker, it would have to be drawing 10+ AMPs and would certainly be a major failure. The cord would be hot, and you might smell smoke.)

More likely, your Segway is just like mine -- it trips GFI outlets when the charge cycle starts or when it goes to Fast Charge. I spent considerable time trying to figure out why. I can say for certain that it *never* leaks any measurable current. I have built an entire test rig just to see if I could catch it leaking even a milliamp, and it does not.

Perhaps your GFI outlet is like mine -- overly sensitive. They're supposed to trip at around 5mA of leakage, but mine is trip-happy. More importantly, it seems very sensitive to inductive loads. Computer power supplies can also trip it. I've decided it's a "faulty" GFI in that it is too sensitive and not correctly detecting real ground faults.

One test you could try is making a 3-prong cord with the ground pin cut off. Yes, it's not a safe cord or a good idea for real use, but a good test to see if your Segway is really putting current in the ground pin. If it trips even with the ground line removed, then you too probably have a faulty GFI.

[KonaSegway]

Same problem here .. at our old house, the GFI outlet was very sensitive and would "reset" when the segway was plugged in.
Just try a non-GFI outlet in the house.

Aloha,
Sam


http://www.konasegway.com

[segeois]

The problem stems from the phase difference betweeen the current and voltage. It's called "power factor" and is the ratio of real power to the total power. A hair dryer has a power factor very close to 1 as it's basically a resistor. GFCIs see a low power factor as leakage and trip. Companies with high electric loads install equipment to keep their overall power factor close to one because paying for a low power factor gets expensive fast. That's because a power factor of 0.5 doubles the cost of electricity.

More info is here:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/powfac.html
or just google for "power factor"

[Ground Loop]

I brought this up with a electrical guy, and he explained that the GFI should not care about power factor. It measures the difference in current between the neutral and hot lines, and trips if they do not match exactly. Usually, that implies that some electricity is being lost through another path -- ground pin, leakage to ground, or the lucky person holding the hairdrier.

As it was explained to me, an inductive power factor shouldn't impact the measurement the GFI is making -- the currents on the two leads still match each other, just not in phase with the AC voltage.

I suspect it's all "idealistic" though and the weird power factor is actually toying with how the GFI works inside and gives wonky measurements.

Anyway, I convinced myself that the Segway is not actually leaking anything or posing a hazard, so I'm okay with replacing the GFI outlet with a non-GFI one.