AC Outlets wired incorrectly ?

[reapur]

Hello,
Hopefully this is the right subforum for maximum eyeballs

2022 Ram 1500 Limited etorque
I recently got a BLUETTI Portable Power Station EB3A, and right away I noticed that it was throwing a short when I try to charge it from the AC outlet, either the one in the front or the back.
Charging it from the Cig outlet works fine, but it's all the way up on the dash and not very convenient to charge the power stations and the fridge in the back seat.

So I tested the outlets with a line tester and here are the results:



Both outlets are showing open ground which I suspect is tripping the power station.
I checked the outlets around the house and they all show the "correct" position. I don't have other cars with outlets to test.
Is this by design? Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Thanks

 

[vincentw56]

Mine is the same. And shows open ground.

 

[Richard320]

This is intriguing.

I checked mine, and my Snap-it tester also shows open ground on both outlets. Yet I know the outlets work, because I've plugged a portable refrigerator in to the 120V in the past and it has worked fine.

So I dug out the Fluke Meter. I get 118.6V AC where I should. That confirms the ground is not really open.

I noticed a little time delay when plugging in the Snap-it tester, so I wondered if something needed to sense a load to turn on. I plugged a Dremel tool in (it was handy) and had it running on the front outlet while I plugged the snap-it tester into the rear. Still says open ground. Obviously it's not, or the Dremel -- which is two-wire -- runs.

What does it mean? I think it means we don't have sine wave power. And since the AC isn't really AC, the LEDs in the Snap-it don't like it. Remember, LEDs are diodes, so power only goes through one-way.

I happen to have a small 200w inverter we used in my wife's previous car. So I tried it. Get this: all three LEDs on the snap-it illuminate! Yet it works. The label on it does say something about "floating ground."

I even checked the Snap-it on a house plug and it shows fine. So the Snap-it isn't fried.

Anyway, I think your truck is working as it should be. Either your Portable Power Station doesn't like impure AC, or it's got a problem. If it works plugged into the house, then it means you're stuck running it on DC in the truck.

 

[vincentw56]

Open ground is talking about the ground wire and not the neutral wire. So, a 2 wire device won't have a ground wire anyway. It could be that the ground wire isn't really used on these. In a building, the ground wire is just that, a wire that goes to the ground.

 

[Rick3478]

Hello,
Hopefully this is the right subforum for maximum eyeballs

2022 Ram 1500 Limited etorque
I recently got a BLUETTI Portable Power Station EB3A, and right away I noticed that it was throwing a short when I try to charge it from the AC outlet, either the one in the front or the back.
Charging it from the Cig outlet works fine, but it's all the way up on the dash and not very convenient to charge the power stations and the fridge in the back seat.

So I tested the outlets with a line tester and here are the results:
View attachment 141532
View attachment 141533

Both outlets are showing open ground which I suspect is tripping the power station.
I checked the outlets around the house and they all show the "correct" position. I don't have other cars with outlets to test.
Is this by design? Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Thanks

Your socket tester is giving correct information, but it may not be useful in addressing your situation. The open ground is probably irrelevant, and your truck's body doesn't qualify as a protective earth anyway.

A quick look at your power station's specs shows a 430 Watt charge rate, and that probably assumes a nearly sine wave AC circuit that can actually deliver that much. What's the rating of the truck's inverter?

You're probably just overloading it.

 

[HSKR R/T]

As mentioned, the ground the tater is looking for is the third prong and no needed to actually use the A/C power. It's a safety ground for when things short out. I'd be willing to bet the issue is with the charging cable for your ppower station

 

[Rick3478]

So I dug out the Fluke Meter. I get 118.6V AC where I should. That confirms the ground is not really open.

No, that confirms that your Fluke saw 118.6 VAC between its leads.
It has very high input impedance, probably > 10M Ohms, and you could touch one lead to ~120 and hold the other with your fingers to get that reading.

To check the ground connection, first verify that there is no voltage between neutral and ground, then use ohmmeter function to verify conductivity.

 

[mikeru82]

Your socket tester is giving correct information, but it may not be useful in addressing your situation. The open ground is probably irrelevant, and your truck's body doesn't qualify as a protective earth anyway.

A quick look at your power station's specs shows a 430 Watt charge rate, and that probably assumes a nearly sine wave AC circuit that can actually deliver that much. What's the rating of the truck's inverter?

You're probably just overloading it.

The rating is 400W. Also, the output isn't a true sine wave. Which causes some devices to not work.

 

[Rick3478]

The rating is 400W. Also, the output isn't a true sine wave. Which causes some devices to not work.

Was tryin' to get OP to look it up for himself. Give a man a fish...

 

[mikeru82]

Was tryin' to get OP to look it up for himself. Give a man a fish...

You can't teach a lazy man to fish. How hard is it to look at the outlet cover?

 

[jimothy]

A quick look at your power station's specs shows a 430 Watt charge rate, and that probably assumes a nearly sine wave AC circuit that can actually deliver that much. What's the rating of the truck's inverter?

You're probably just overloading it.

The 430W rate is when charging from both solar and AC. On AC alone, it charges at 268W (or 350W in “turbo mode”).

So it seems more likely that the lack of pure sine wave AC is the culprit. (I’ve never tried charging my EB3A from the truck’s AC outlet, and I guess now I won’t bother).

 

[Vicdog]

Hard to find a small cheap inverter with a neutral ground bond, sine wave or not. Could also be trying to pull too much from the inverter, causing it to shut down.


just looked at your manual, says charging input at 120 volts is 9 amps .

 

[reapur]

Great responses. Thanks guys. Lots of help.

From these specs I figured it would work.Maybe it's the sine wave thing.
I have a call in with them hopefully they provide an answer.
I wish ram would've included a cig plug in the back. I bought one of these

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0196DXEBI?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

and it charges at 61 watts. on the other hand, it charges from the cig plug on the dash at 99 watts.
So I think either I install my own 12V plug in back, or see about buying a more beefy adapter.

 

[reapur]

The 430W rate is when charging from both solar and AC. On AC alone, it charges at 268W (or 350W in “turbo mode”).

So it seems more likely that the lack of pure sine wave AC is the culprit. (I’ve never tried charging my EB3A from the truck’s AC outlet, and I guess now I won’t bother).

Are you using a long wire to charge from the dash?

 

[jimothy]

Are you using a long wire to charge from the dash?

No, my setup is a bit different. I use solar to charge a DIY 24V 50Ah (1280 Wh) battery box. I usually don’t need an inverter, but when I do, that’s where the Bluetti comes in. I could then charge the Bluetti from solar or the 24V battery.

Long story short, I never needed to charge the Bluetti from my truck, so I never ran into this issue.

 

[Aseras]

Use a multimeter on continuity/ohm mode, set it to beep and make sure if you touch leads it beeps for continuity.

Put one lead in the ground plug and touch the other to the frame where there is bare metal. It should beep.

 

[monza2t]

Great responses. Thanks guys. Lots of help.
View attachment 141576

So there could be a couple things here. First off these don't charge "linearly" at 350W, they have a switchmode power supply in them that is creating harmonics on the supply side, and being that you are very close to the maximum (400W) of the built in inverter it could be causing the output of the inverter to be even less so of a sine wave than normal, a distorted output that the EB3A input side finds objectionable. I would suspect if you plugged it into an inverter with a much higher capacity than 400W that it probably would work fine.