A Series of Unfortunate Events

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gary

Senior Member
Location
California
Occupation
Retired electrical contractor / general contractor
I finished wiring a large custom home in August, 2004.

Two weeks ago, the 48? 4-tube florescent fixture in the laundry room stopped working.

The owner replaced the original four Phillips 34 watt ?Econ-O-Watt? T-12 bulbs, but the fixture still would not work.

Assuming that the ballast was bad, the owner installed a replacement that he says was identical to the original. Now the fixture would light up, but the 20 amp AFCI breaker would often trip when the light was turned on.

Taking a closer look at the label on the ballast, he noticed that the new ballast specified it was for use with T-8 bulbs, so he installed a set of 32 watt T-8 bulbs. Again, the fixture would light up but often tripped the AFCI.

At this point, he called me for help and wanted to know if I thought the breaker could be bad. I told him I thought it unlikely that the breaker would just happen to go bad at the same time he was working on this fixture. I offered to take a look but he wanted to try to fix it himself, so I told him to make sure the wiring matched the diagram on the ballast, that the connections were all tight, that the bulbs were properly seated, and that wires were securely attached to the lamp sockets.

Unable to find anything wrong with the installation, he now assumed that the new ballast was defective or had been damaged by the T-12 bulbs. After installing another new ballast with T-8 bulbs, he found that the AFCI still tripped!

Another electrician who lives near the owner suggested there might be something wrong with the light switch, so he replaced one of the 3-way light switches. The AFCI still tripped.

Yesterday he called & said he?d bought a new AFCI but wasn?t sure how to install it and could really use some help. It took me half an hour to get there through the holiday traffic. I was surprised to find that the fixture was ?on? when I arrived. He explained that sometimes the fixture would light without tripping the breaker and could then be left on for hours without any problem. This was a windowless room between the house and garage so they?d been leaving it on a lot! I found that switching the light on would trip the breaker about 50% of the time. I could find nothing wrong with the fixture wiring. Rather than opening the blister pack on his new breaker, I tried temporarily moving the circuit to one of the other AFCI?s already in the panel. It also tripped when the light was turned on! At this point I thought there must be a fundamental compatibility problem between the breaker & the ballast. As a last resort, I suggested we go ahead and try the brand new breaker hoping that during the past two years Siemens had somehow improved the product. Lo and behold, the new breaker resolved the problem!

The original ballast had been discarded, so I was unable to verify that the replacement was in fact identical to the original. I didn?t think T-12 bulbs would work at all with an electronic ballast. Is it possible that they ?worked? but drew excessive current causing the original ballast to fail after 2 years?

In hindsight, the owner was right in suspecting from the beginning that there was something wrong with the breaker. Are there known breaker / ballast compatibility issues that I should have been aware of? I searched this site for ?AFCI? didn?t find that there were too many reported problems with the breakers. I?m going to call Siemens next week & see if they have an explanation. At this point, talk of greatly expanding the role of AFCI?s in the next code cycle is making me a little nervous!
 

cpal

Senior Member
Location
MA
Gary
This is a problem that is not that uncommon with older afci's but I can not say for certain it is the seimens line.

If it is siemens, ???


I think they has problems with flourescents and common appiances such as vacumn cleaners creating nusance trips.

They also has an issue with the breakers if they were stacked one over the other in the load center. Apparently they have (or had) sly a dc power supply for the electronics that when the breakers were stacked created an over heating condition, I tried searching the siemens cite but there is a lot of info and I could not find the file that I previously read.

http://www.siemens.com/index.jsp?

You might look for your self
Hopwe it helps

Charlie
 

infinity

Moderator
Staff member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Journeyman Electrician
After reading about many of the problems associated with AFCI CB's I'm glad that we're still not required to install them.
 

jcole

Senior Member
i had the same problem recently and came to the same conclusion that you did. i tried a newer afci and everything was ok. it was siemens. i went on and replaced the other afci's also. i am one of the few who believes that afcis do make people safer. the statistics prove it. but they can be a pain in the rear when they start tripping for reasons other than what they are intended for.

Jcole
 

gary

Senior Member
Location
California
Occupation
Retired electrical contractor / general contractor
jcole said:
i had the same problem recently and came to the same conclusion that you did. i tried a newer afci and everything was ok. it was siemens. i went on and replaced the other afci's also. i am one of the few who believes that afcis do make people safer. the statistics prove it. but they can be a pain in the rear when they start tripping for reasons other than what they are intended for.

Jcole

It would be helpful if these devices were marked with a date of manufacture or a version number to make it easier to tell if you are installing an upgraded item. This new breaker was simply marked as a Siemens Q120AF and looked identical in every way to the original. They do all have a sticker that appears to be a serial number, but that doesn't help the guy in the field trying to troubleshoot nuisance tripping. Do we now have to warn customers that their new energy saving light fixtures may not be compatible with their expensive "old" 1st generation "Smart" circuit breakers?
 

Dave58er

Senior Member
Location
Dearborn, MI
Out of curiosity, what was the reasoning for putting a laundry room outlet on an AFCI. I've always tried to put as little load as possible on an AFCI circuit, outside of what's required, both to avoid nuissance trips and to save expense. Those breakers aren't cheap. Was it planned that way from the start, an add-on load, or was it a code I'm not yet aware of?
 

gary

Senior Member
Location
California
Occupation
Retired electrical contractor / general contractor
Dave58er said:
Out of curiosity, what was the reasoning for putting a laundry room outlet on an AFCI. I've always tried to put as little load as possible on an AFCI circuit, outside of what's required, both to avoid nuissance trips and to save expense. Those breakers aren't cheap. Was it planned that way from the start, an add-on load, or was it a code I'm not yet aware of?

This was a high end custom home and was wired far beyond the minimum standard required by the NEC. Each bedroom was wired with a separate 20 amp AFCI receptacle circuit. I also keep all lighting loads separate from receptacle loads. The laundry happened to be close to the bedrooms and this fixture became part of what was primarily a bedroom lighting circuit.
 
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LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
gary said:
I also keep all lighting loads separate from receptacle loads.
Same here, except for the occasional convenience receptacle and light in a closet, attic, storage space, crawlspace, etc.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Jim W in Tampa said:
Why are you doing this in a home ? Makes since in commercial.
For performance's sake. Less overhead-lighting dimming when turning on the TV, for example, as well as the convenience of a tripping breaker not killing an entire room.

Plus, I can supply more than one room's receptacles with a 20-amp circuit, while also supplying more than one room's lighting load with a 15-amp circuit. Same reasons as commercial, basically.
 

al hildenbrand

Senior Member
Location
Minnesota
Occupation
Electrical Contractor, Electrical Consultant, Electrical Engineer
gary said:
Do we now have to warn customers that their new energy saving light fixtures may not be compatible with their expensive "old" 1st generation "Smart" circuit breakers?
gary said:
At this point, talk of greatly expanding the role of AFCI?s in the next code cycle is making me a little nervous!
You and me, both!

With the new AFCI trip level being reduced from 70 Amps to 5 Amps, we're gonna find just how "smart" these breakers are.

The AFCI "black box" that, we are told, holds its brain, is still not being described in dispassionate technical terms. . . just jingoism. This absence of information is glaring, to me.

The inability to test the AFCI sensors and programming results in expensive, time consuming, brute force swapping out of hardware in the hopes "something" will allow the branch circuit to stay energized.

Most unsatisfactory.
 

George Stolz

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
Occupation
Service Manager
The original Siemens breakers would not accept fluorescent lights at all, in my experience. I don't know why. I can't recall if the fixture that educated me on that was magnetic or electronic, unfortunately.

Later on, I had to install an electronic ballast on an AFCI and it worked. The breakers had recently changed housings a little bit. The originals had quarter-inch square blue buttons, and then the newer ones had more like an eighth-inch square button. Now, the latest rendition comes with a solid neutral as opposed to the older ones, which had stranded pigtails.

I share contempt for the things. I sure hope the 2008 does not follow through with the expansion to all 15A and 20A branch circuits in the dwelling.
 

kbsparky

Senior Member
Location
Delmarva, USA
I have had similar problems with Cutler-Hammer AFI breakers: Nuisance tripping that can't be resolved until we replaced the breakers with new ones.

Interesting note here is only Square D had the guts to recall many of their older breakers, and replace them for free. Not so with the other manufacturers, as you end up footing the bill for the newer "replacements" .... (just a thought) :)
 

peter d

Senior Member
Location
New England
I have a feeling that we are going to see a lot of AFCI breakers that are installed for inspections and removed after the fact. I am NOT encouraging or condoning this, but if problems like this continue, this is what will happen.
 

allenwayne

Senior Member
peter d said:
I have a feeling that we are going to see a lot of AFCI breakers that are installed for inspections and removed after the fact. I am NOT encouraging or condoning this, but if problems like this continue, this is what will happen.
What will happen ??? It`s called an AFCI repair kit .Which is as standard OCPD in lieu of an AFCI OCPD.We install them and what happens after with hacks and all is out of our control.They introduced fuse stats back in the day to stop over fusing but this a horse of another colour.
 

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
I don't concern myself with what the unqualified will do once I get my final inspection.

We work to the current code requirements and move on to the next job.
 

gary

Senior Member
Location
California
Occupation
Retired electrical contractor / general contractor
Called the Siemens customer support guy this morning. He told me their AFCI breakers were re-designed in November of 2004 to reduce nuisance tripping. The number on the white label across the bottom of the front of the breaker, just below the blue test button, is a combination date code / serial number. The first four numerals indicate the month and year of manufacture. For example, the label on the breaker I was having trouble with was H0404274759. This would indicate it was produced in April, 2004. He thought Siemens would be willing to send me a replacement but he had to check with “marketing” first. He took my name & phone number & said he’d call back after lunch. Maybe he'll call tomorrow!
 

steve66

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
Engineer
Did he give you any idea how long "lunch" would be?

I don't think lunch ever ends for "marketing". An old Dilbert cartoon had a sign above the marketing department that read:

"Marketing: Three drink minimum."

Steve
 
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