{"id":790,"date":"2026-03-28T20:19:03","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jrtwine.com\/blog\/?p=790"},"modified":"2026-03-28T20:19:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:19:03","slug":"new-pinball-trips-gfci-but-not-a-normal-outlet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jrtwine.com\/blog\/new-pinball-trips-gfci-but-not-a-normal-outlet\/","title":{"rendered":"New Pinball Trips GFCI but not a Normal Outlet"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

So, a friend of mine had an interesting problem, he purchased a brand new pin that obviously tested and worked well before it was shipped to him, but as soon as he plugged into a GFCI<\/em> socket in his garage, it tripped the GFCI outlet.

They came and got the game, treated it again, said it worked and played fine, and then returned it.\u00a0 Same problem.\u00a0 \u00a0What we later figured out was that they did not<\/em><\/strong> test it with a GFCI\/DFCI outlet.<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

Upon getting the pin back my friend looked closer at the wiring.\u00a0 Turns out on the primary power supply in the cabinet, ground<\/strong> and neutral<\/strong> were crossed<\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0 This absolutely explains the GFCI outlet tripping, as they are designed to expect matching current on the hot<\/em> and neutral<\/em> lines (i.e. a\u00a0 balanced load<\/em>) and ground<\/strong> was being used as the return instead of neutral<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n

Switching the neutral and ground wires to where they should be resolved the issue.\u00a0 The important question is, how did this game pass electrical inspection, and begs the question\u00b9: should use of a GFCI\/DFCI outlet be a required part of electrical inspection\/checkout?<\/p>\r\n

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\u00b9 Using this not as the logical fallacy<\/em>, but as something that raises another question.<\/small><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, a friend of mine had an interesting problem, he purchased a brand new pin that obviously tested and worked well before it was shipped to him, but as soon as he plugged into a GFCI socket in his garage, it tripped the GFCI outlet. They came and got the game, treated it again, said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[127,128,102,21,26],"class_list":["post-790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-electrical","tag-gfci","tag-pinball","tag-repair","tag-repair-log"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t