AFCI breaker

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Ralphie

Member
Location
Hart mi
New construction, Circuit energized by AFCI breaker,
as soon as anything is plugged into a receptacle the breaker trips.
Tried changing the breaker, same results. Insalled regular breaker,everthing works fine
Whats wrong here ??
 

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
New construction, Circuit energized by AFCI breaker,
as soon as anything is plugged into a receptacle the breaker trips.
Tried changing the breaker, same results. Insalled regular breaker,everthing works fine
Whats wrong here ??

The neutral is in contact with the grounding conductor or other grounded metal.
 

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
90% chance it is a crossed neutral issue. If so a GFCI breaker would trip too.
Did you properly wire the circuit neutral through the breaker?
Is this a single pole breaker on half of an MWBC?
 

user 100

Senior Member
Location
texas
I agree w/ the above- check for incorrectly blended neutrals and egc inadvertently mating with a neutral, 99% it's going to be one of the two.
The fact that you tried another afci and got same results excludes the chance of defective afci, but what was the "anything" plugged in?
 

klineelectric

Member
Location
FL
Occupation
electrical contractor
I've had trim nails (crown moulding) hit wire, touching neutral and ground ,did same thing. Also had had insulators hit wire with their stapler with same result. If nothing is obvious you just have to start pulling circuit apart and checking each wire, almost always continuity on ground and neutral if breaker only trips with load applied.
 

delfadelfa

Member
Location
Cincinnati, OH
If the neutral was touching the bare ground anywhere, the breaker would trip immediately. Unless I misunderstood the problem, it only trips as soon as anything is plugged into a receptacle. So does that not take the neutral to ground out of the problem. Unless the thing that you are plugging in the receptacle has a neutral to ground problem. Unless the thing you are plugging in has two prongs and does not have a ground. I only had that problem once when I had the wrong neutral on the breaker. Check continuity between panel and receptacle neutral.
 

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
A GFCI breaker or receptacle may contain an active ground to neutral continuity tester.
But does the GFP in an AFCI breaker with GFP also have that feature?
 

mbrooke

Batteries Included
Location
United States
Occupation
Technician
Crossed neutral or standing neutral to ground fault as others have said. In this case the AFCI is doing its job.
 

romex jockey

Senior Member
Location
Vermont
Occupation
electrician
de energize and lift neutrals off the MBJ , ring them out to earth, then to each other.

if that fails it's megger time

~RJ~
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
A GFCI breaker or receptacle may contain an active ground to neutral continuity tester.
But does the GFP in an AFCI breaker with GFP also have that feature?
I could be wrong but I believe that class A GFCI's must contain the components that seek out N-G faults (even with no load) that is why those trip immediately when you have such a fault. Without that component, there has to be enough current flowing to cause enough imbalance in the GF sensor to trip it, OP has no such current/not enough current until they plug things in.
 
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