Step #1. Stand in bath of water holding the hot wire from a long extension cord. #2. Have an assistant plug in extension cord. #3. If you're still reading this far, the GFI works. [Linked Image] But seriously.....

Virgil, temporarily linking the ground on the recept to the neutral wouldn't work, because the tester needs to divert current around the GFI to create an imbalance between hot and neutral. But as you said, you certainly wouldn't want to leave the jumper there.

If we were talking about a GFI recept rather than a GFI C/B at the panel, then you could temporarily jumper the recept ground to the supply-side neutral and the plug-in tester would work. But that's exactly what pressing the GFI's test button does, so why bother? All that the GFI test button does is connect a suitable value resistor from the load-side hot to the supply-side neutral (it would work the other way as well).

If an external test is really necessary, I think a long wander lead for the ground is the only practical (& safe) answer. Bear in mind that it wouldn't have to go to a grounding conductor or pipe etc. You could connect it to the neutral of a non-GFI'd circuit and it would work fine.

Bill,
I can't think of any practical way to set up an imbalance without having some other grounded reference point. With just two connections the current that comes out of one has to go back in the other, no matter what it goes through on the way. (That's why I can't figure how the "multicoupler" over on the other forum could have tripped the GFI).



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 08-10-2002).]