I just got my Crossfire set up from the second batch from the first set of machines made. Just had all the electrical done, which the Razorweld 45 Plasma is running off of a double pole 30amp breaker and same with my Air Compressor. They are at the very bottom of my electrical box and whenever I have the plasma fire, somehow it makes my GFCI Breaker which is close to the top trip which has my Crossfire CNC Portion with the motors connected to it. I don’t know what is causing the issue and was wondering if anyone else came into this issue by chance. If you have any ideas I would greatly appreciate them.
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My thought would be that maybe the neutral bus in your panel might not be tied into ground (with the mysterious green screw). Not sure, but you would think that is could cause a mild back feed that these “ground fault” interrupter might interpret as a short. My small compressor runs on a GFI, but when hard starting in cold weather, the GFI thinks it is a short and kills the power. Could be the surge on the neutral side is tripping GFI.
Ill be watching this post as I might see the same kind of problem after mine arrives soon… 
Is your service panel in a garage? I’m not sure why the CrossFire controller breaker would be on a GFCI breaker otherwise. Is it a subpanel (ie, the main service panel is located elsewhere)?
The Breaker controls my outside outlets, bathroom outlets, and the only one garage outlet that I have at the moment. It is inside in the laundry room next to the garage. The thing I don’t understand is why it would only do it whenever the Plasma fires. Without the Plasma firing it is good to go. I just took my panel off and looked at the wiring again to see about the grounding and from what I can see everything looks good. The GFCI is the only one that is in the cabinet.
It appears that there are two circuits going to the GFCI breaker. Did you add a new one to provide an outlet for the Crossfire?
If the Crossfire is on a main garage circuit, then I can see that it would be on such a circuit (generally garage outlets are GFCI protected like outdoor outlets), but, in itself, the CrossFire system doesn;t need GFCI protection as it is a totally self-contained electronics and not prone to the imbalance of current that you might find in yard equipment. Having said that, the high frequency/high current energy drawn by the plasma cutting tool wreaks havoc with many pieces of electronic equipment and, if there is a long path to the ground point of the overall panel, you could get spikes that trip the breaker.
Personally, I’d move the CrossFire receptacle to its own, non-GFCI, breaker. Don’t replace the existing breaker - code requires outdoor circuits to be protected.
As a disclaimer, I will say, I am NOT a licensed electrician (having seen the crap that some of them do, I wouldn’t want to be called that), but do have a reasonable understanding of the science of the code.
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I just noticed that in photo 1 & 2, I can see two double breakers, one on each side and I see White wires going to one leg of each breaker. If this is a 240volt branch and the White lead is feeding one of the legs, then the white lead MUST be marked with either Black or Red electrical tape as a hot lead at both ends of the circuit! Otherwise some unsuspecting person will think its a Neutral line and could get electrocuted. This is in the code.
Was this done by one of those ‘licensed electricians’???
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Well I had bought 100’ of 10 gauge wire, and bought the breakers and just had the guy come and fish them up from the breaker box into the attic for me to do the rest. So he never said anything about the colors being anything, but it did come White, Black, and Ground in the romex. Just to get a good understanding as to what you mean though for the GFCI issue. You are saying that I should probably make a dedicated breaker for the garage outlets outside for this machine? I had originally thought of this because like I said my garage only has one outlet in it, which doesn’t make sense to me for a garage. I was originally thinking of also running extra outlets on a new 25amp breaker for all things that would run in the garage off of it. You think this would help the issue?
I’m not entirely sure I understand your question so I’ll answer in my own words. I was suggesting that you add a new circuit, without GFCI, for a dedicated outlet for the CrossFire. However, I see that your panel is full so I’m not sure what you should do in this case.
I have two more spots at the bottom of my panel left over. I was suggesting the same thing basically. That way it shouldn’t interfere with the GFCI breaker. I will definitely look into getting another one added in and putting the electrical tape on the other breaker lines after I get the guy to come and install a new one and see how much more romex I have left over which I should have enough I would think. Thank you for your suggestion and help.
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So, I just tried running the machine while it was plugged into an extension cord ran from my kitchen and it ran with no problems. So I will need to run another breaker and some more romex for the wiring of it. I don’t know why I didn’t think to try that out earlier, but I am going to see what I can get done to fix the issue. Thanks for all the help and insight into what the issue might be caused by.
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Has it got a good ground?
I got everything fixed by getting a guy to come put in a new 20amp breaker and running some wire in my attic to which I ran conduit, 4 gang boxes and got the machine to cut with no problems cutting it off. Sorry this took so long to reply back to. I have been busy.