What will a arc fault br120 run without tripping?

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FionaZuppa

Senior Member
Location
AZ
Occupation
Part Time Electrician (semi retired, old) - EE retired.
CH for the brand Cutler Hammer and BR for the type.

Like SqD QO.

i dont see it that way.
BR were Bryant Electrical Company breakers that were acquired by CH/Eaton, thus to me you have two types, a Eaton CH or a Eaton BR. When i hear Cutler Hammer breaker i think of the CH style. when i hear BR i think of Eaton BR.
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
i dont see it that way.
BR were Bryant Electrical Company breakers that were acquired by CH/Eaton, thus to me you have two types, a Eaton CH or a Eaton BR. When i hear Cutler Hammer breaker i think of the CH style. when i hear BR i think of Eaton BR.

I have heard it both ways. Remember, some of us old guys spent more of our careers without Eaton owning Cutler Hammer than the way it is now.

:p

I think it's obvious when someone says 'CH BR' they are referring to BR type breakers of the Eaton/Cutler Hammer persuasion.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
I have heard it both ways. Remember, some of us old guys spent more of our careers without Eaton owning Cutler Hammer than the way it is now.

:p

I think it's obvious when someone says 'CH BR' they are referring to BR type breakers of the Eaton/Cutler Hammer persuasion.

I usually just call them "BR" and IIRC that is what they have in their catalog numbers BR120, BR230, BR250.....and don't think anyone else besides former owners of that particular line uses that name.
 

FionaZuppa

Senior Member
Location
AZ
Occupation
Part Time Electrician (semi retired, old) - EE retired.
I usually just call them "BR" and IIRC that is what they have in their catalog numbers BR120, BR230, BR250.....and don't think anyone else besides former owners of that particular line uses that name.

the catalog also has CHxyz too. CH's wont fit the BR panels, BR's wont fit the CH panels. just seeing "BR" or "CH" (to me) is indicating the type of breaker......... we all know they are from Cutler or Bryant days, now all under Eaton roof. what i am not sure of is, which brand names are still being used? i believe Bryant is no longer being used, not sure about Cutler, has Eaton started to do that "synergy" step where they unify things back to a single name?

anyways, this is an interesting BRAF issue.... i suspect shared neutral wiring.
 

J.P.

Senior Member
Location
United States
I didn't have time to mess with anything today. But to answer a few questions on issues that I thought were non issues.

Brand: Cutler Hammer
Style: BR, Arc fault with a yellow button. One of the long ones. ( older style? )

I thought I may try a Square D homeline as well.

I tried one thing at a time.

Once again there are ZERO possibilities of a shared neutral or a mis-wire. The Circuit is coming right off the breaker out of the front of the panel. (Dead front off and door open) straight to a recep that is just hanging there without a box.
The whole thing is three feet long.
I was just trying to see what tripped a arc fault, I was at the shop and had a few min. No kittens or goldfish were injured, inebriated or consumed during this experiment.

I probably have a bad breaker from what I gathered. Thats my luck.

I'll post back after I try a new breaker.
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
I didn't have time to mess with anything today. But to answer a few questions on issues that I thought were non issues.

Brand: Cutler Hammer
Style: BR, Arc fault with a yellow button. One of the long ones. ( older style? )

I thought I may try a Square D homeline as well.

I tried one thing at a time.

Once again there are ZERO possibilities of a shared neutral or a mis-wire. The Circuit is coming right off the breaker out of the front of the panel. (Dead front off and door open) straight to a recep that is just hanging there without a box.
The whole thing is three feet long.
I was just trying to see what tripped a arc fault, I was at the shop and had a few min. No kittens or goldfish were injured, inebriated or consumed during this experiment.

I probably have a bad breaker from what I gathered. Thats my luck.

I'll post back after I try a new breaker.

Yes, please let us know if the SqD breaker behaves differently.
 

ELA

Senior Member
Occupation
Electrical Test Engineer
Hello J.P.

One other thing you can try if you are curious. Instead of the ~3ft cable between the breaker and the load try a much longer cable (perhaps partial box of 12-2 romex). Something longer than ~75ft.

Assuming your connections are correct as you have stated it is pretty unusual to have a light only trip the breaker.

As far as the other loads adding some impedance ( longer cable) would be a more realistic test and may provide some insights ( unless it is a defective device).
 

FionaZuppa

Senior Member
Location
AZ
Occupation
Part Time Electrician (semi retired, old) - EE retired.
the older long body AF's (yellow tagged) were noted in some other posts as being problematic. the AF's i installed were the compact body (green tagged) and these swapped out some older long body ones.

i didnt see the older long body AF's in the Eaton catalog. are they now gone form production??

did the packaging on your AF breaker say "Cutler-Hammer" or just "Eaton"?? what is the exact model # of the breaker??
 
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J.P.

Senior Member
Location
United States
The very unexciting conclusion of my arc fault experiment........

Bad breaker, I replaced it and everything but the shop vac would run.

Murphy was watching when I grabbed the breaker off the shelf I guess.
 

macmikeman

Senior Member
I feel like I have suffered damages from just reading all this. No excuse Eaton. All your profits for the last ten yrs should be yanked away from all the headaches you have caused electricians in America. Fix your problems and then go to market with the breakers.
 
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