shockbusters....worth it or not?

[nightfire]

today i woke up to a huge light flicker under my tank in my sump area....i opened the doors and saw nothing but i hit my shockbuster button to turn everything off....that worked so as everything was off and the backflow was filling my sump up i started looking around and didnt notice anything......must of been too sleepy and a after i turned everything back on and a bit of time passed by i noticed this nasty smell.....like something was burning, i checked again and somehow my heater had busted.....long story short i was left telling my wife to get me a walmart heater and wondering why the crap didnt my shockbuster trip it all off........is it possible that the heaters we use or atleast some dont send out much voltage to trip anything? luckly nothing in the tank was damaged though

 

[NeveSSL]

Assuming a shock buster is a GFCI, they sense current in and current out. If there was current leaking into the tank, and it was working correctly, it would have tripped.

The thing about a busted heater is that it likely wasn't leaking any voltage or current into the tank.

It should have a test button on it. Try it. You may have been using it as an on/off switch.

Brandon

 

[nightfire]

test works fine....so have no clue whats wrong with it.....suppose im making a new gfci buy maybe

 

[Fishtails]

What brand of heater were you using?

 

[NeveSSL]

I don't think you read what I typed... a broken heater may not trip it.

Brandon

 

[Jennifier615]

Hey Mario there is a dude in white bluff that has an icecap ballast and bulbs for 65 on the CL. That may be a good economical backup

 

[rcmike]

Now if you had stuck your hand in it and some of the current went into you then it should have tripped. Also, if you have a ground probe in the tank it probably would have tripped. If the same amount of current is going into the GFCI as is coming out of it it won't trip.

 

[mixer911]

Now if you had stuck your hand in it and some of the current went into you then it should have tripped. Also, if you have a ground probe in the tank it probably would have tripped. If the same amount of current is going into the GFCI as is coming out of it it won't trip.

Exactly, it was probably a NON grounded heater (2 prongs) so no ground actually faulted to trip the GFCI.

 

[nightfire]

its all on a surge protector thats connected to my GFCI...i guess thats not enough to make it trip if it needs to and i need to get a ground probe to stick in the sump...and thanks jen for the tip on cl