So when I wired my new office, on ground level, I put in GFCI outlets everywhere to protect people and equipment against shorts in the event of water on the ground.
<p>So, this morning when I came in to the office everything was turned off. The UPS was drained and the laptop was asleep. Was there a power failure? No, the clocks aren’t blinking. Did the UPS software suddenly go insane? No, the UPS is actually dead. When I brought a lamp upline my electrical circuit to see which outlets were operational, I came to the head GFCI, with its little “I was a good boy and protected you” light on.</p>
<p>There was an electrical storm last night, and a not-so-nearby strike (8 second report, minimum) was apparently enough to induce a high frequency current that the GFCI felt was as short across its protection circuit. This isn’t my longest run of electrical cable and it’s properly grounded. After doing some reading, apparently GFCI’s just do that, even when they’re working properly. And these are the expensive 20A units (~$19/ea).</p>
<p>So, sometimes the solution can cause other problems. The best bet for me would be to get a UPS with a dual power supply, run another branch circuit, put that on its own GFCI, cable everything through the Big UPS, and hope both branch GFCI’s don’t do this at once.</p>
<p>I’ll probably just live with it.