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Old 09-15-2020, 08:15 PM   #1
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Surge Guard by South Wire

I recently started a thread about an issue I was having with a hardwired EMS unit I installed. I was getting a ground fault error when I tried to run the A/C on a home electrical outlet. This only happened when the A/C was starting to run. The fan would run but when the compressor kicked in the unit would shut off power and I'd get the ground fault error. This particular Surge Guard unit does protect against low voltage but in my thinking if low voltage is the issue you should get a low voltage error message.

Anyway, I contacted Southwire the maker of Surge Guard via their website message system. I waited a days and got no reply. I decide to call them and the message on their phone systems was technical questions had to go through their website message system. I again sent a message through the system and as of today (over a week) haven't received a reply.

I say all of this to say I have had no other issues with any of the EMS units I have purchased from Southwire over the years and I'm pretty certain the A/C shutdown is due to low voltage when trying to run it off the house line (runs fine on generator with no shutdown or error message) rather than a ground fault. Everything else runs fine of the house line (separately electric water heater, microwave, etc.). But I am very disappointed in their lack of customer support.
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Old 09-15-2020, 08:23 PM   #2
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By reading your post, I would tend to think that there is indeed a ground fault issue. Like you said, if it were low volt, it would say so. But I'm not much help. There are a few master electricians on the forum, maybe one of them will catch on to this thread and offer some advice.

Sorry that company is not responding. That is pretty sore customer relations. It could be due to the china virus issue that could be affecting their business. Hope they follow thru and get your question answered in a much more timely manner, though.
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Old 09-16-2020, 01:19 PM   #3
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Originally Posted by sturgissteele View Post
By reading your post, I would tend to think that there is indeed a ground fault issue. Like you said, if it were low volt, it would say so. But I'm not much help. There are a few master electricians on the forum, maybe one of them will catch on to this thread and offer some advice.

Sorry that company is not responding. That is pretty sore customer relations. It could be due to the china virus issue that could be affecting their business. Hope they follow thru and get your question answered in a much more timely manner, though.
I would not question the ground fault error but my thinking is if there is a ground fault it would show up regardless of what I was running (A/C, microwave, electric heater, etc.). The fact that the A/C fan didn't trigger the error is another indication that it's something isolated to the A/C system (could be wrong).

I'm very understanding if the China virus is impacting a business but if I call and I'm told to use the online means of communication due to the virus I expect someone would at least acknowledge receiving the message and provide a timeframe for when to expect a detailed response. At this point, two weeks later nothing.
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Old 09-16-2020, 01:40 PM   #4
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Originally Posted by 2edgesword View Post
I would not question the ground fault error but my thinking is if there is a ground fault it would show up regardless of what I was running (A/C, microwave, electric heater, etc.). (could be wrong).

I'm still confused, in the other thread you were saying "Ground fault" error too, but that isn't one of the error codes that gets displayed. Just where are you getting that code, and what exactly shows up?
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Old 09-25-2020, 05:28 AM   #5
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I'm still confused, in the other thread you were saying "Ground fault" error too, but that isn't one of the error codes that gets displayed. Just where are you getting that code, and what exactly shows up?
There is a remote display for the EMS unit that provides a digital display of voltage current and any fault messages you may get. The ground fault message is on that digital display.

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Old 10-01-2020, 06:04 PM   #6
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I wanted to add a follow-up to my original post. Someone from Southwire finally contacted my after three weeks from my original message to them regarding the issue I was having. Of course this is not ideal but better late than never. After a number of emails and phone conversations we still haven't found the root cause of the ground fault shutdowns.

There was some discussion that the A/C start-up was causing a momentary high ground to neutral in the electrical system. Anything above 18V would cause the EMS to shut off power but my measurements indicated highest voltage between ground and neutral was about 4.5V during the A/C start up.

I was about ready to disconnect the unit to send it to Southwire for further investigation. In the meantime the Microair Easy Start I had on order arrive so I decided to go ahead and install it. After making the installation and starting the A/C 5 times using a 4400 watt generator (the recommended using house power if available but it wasn't so the generator was the only option) so the Easy Start learns the start up demand it came down to the moment of truth. I hooked up the Yamaha 2400ishc, let it warm up and turn on the A/C...and it started without send the generator into overload AND without the EMS shutting off power. I shut the A/C off, waited a few minutes and attempted another start. Again it started and ran with no issues.

At this point it now appears the issue from the start was not related to a ground fault but low voltage. Southwire is still evaluating why a ground fault rather than a low voltage message was generated. If/when that gets resolved I'll post their findings.
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