Siemens CAFCI Tripping From Other Circuits and Cellphones

Status
Not open for further replies.
The generation information is useful if you are wanting to see if you have one of the later ones. Newer ones probably have more "profiles" in them to reduce false tripping.
 
Siemens AFCIs seem to currently be a $@#!show. My own new microwave is tripping them (like, once a month) and I was just working at a house where two or three were tripping from stuff like a TV. Seems like we've heard about Homeline in the past, maybe it's just Siemens turn now.
 
So GE used to use siemens badge engineered for afci and then dualfunctions. Now siemens has the non gfpe afci like GE has now. This is just my speculating but I think they maybe using GEs afci without messing with it much. Those GE afci worked great for certain things because no gfpe but it seamed to be more sensitive to appliances. A afci with pigtail that probably uses gfpe still might be the ticket to getting around some things. I don't like the pigtail but am happy to so long as I don't use square D or Tan CH long ones that leave 0 room on the sides of the panel
 
AAR said:
I will attempt your experiment
Click to expand...
Try swapping that bus stab location for thermal-mag breakers only, and keep AFCI's off it.

Try surrounding range igniter breaker with thermal-mag only breakers, keeping electronic breakers away from it.

If range appliance igniter or radio tower transmissions riding along nearby power lines can produce a confined interference pattern at certain bus stab locations, it may overwhelm un-shielded electronics.
 
As far as not having GFP function I think that turns them into an overpriced thermal magnetic breaker.

Had recent service call, QO AFCI breaker tripping. Portable heater causing meltdown at the plug and receptacle was the cause of the troubles. I first thought, an AFCI that did what they claimed it might do. It got to where it was tripping even with heater unplugged. Then after further investigation determined the receptacle developed a ground fault and that is what was tripping the breaker.
 
kwired said:
As far as not having GFP function I think that turns them into an overpriced thermal magnetic breaker.
Click to expand...
Ground fault devices only trip on downstream events, and can't detect anything upstream, much less smoldering bus stabs, high-impedance N-G leakage from charcoal outlets, or carbonized devices, typical in existing wiring.

Tying to prove sustained arcs in residential applications is not the best function of AFCI's.
 
AAR said:
I have been troubleshooting a house that was completely rewired this year. What I have discovered about this tripping issue has finally taken me to an area that I don't know what else I could do to mitigate this.

This is 1 Siemens 20A CAFCI Plug on neutral circuit breaker, feeding 10 receptacles in the living room.

I have replaced the breaker with a new one which did slow down the tripping to around 3 times a day. I noticed the code on the first one was A00 and the replacement is A03.

I have replaced all receptacles in the room with new 20A Leviton TR receptacles, verified all wiring and even tape wrapped receptacle for good measure.

I have removed all connected devices and Meggered circuit at 500V L-N L-G & G-N, all maxing out the meter at 500 Megaohms.

Resident claims she believes cooking on the stove in the kitchen, or her kids playing on their cell phones in the living room seem to be times it will trip.

Last night I plugged everything in and turned it on, TV, christmas tree, Cable box, device charges, modem etc. I then turned all 4 oven burners to low so they were all rapidly turning on an off, and sure enough after about 10 minutes click. Obviously the oven is on a completely different circuit.

This is where it gets real interesting, the cell phone suggestion. I have a friend rapid text me 10 times as I hold my cell phone next to the CB. And sure enough, on the 4th text it trips. This house is probably a 6th of a mile as a crow flies to a cell tower.

I guess my question is, where would one go from here? Is it even possible to mitigate the interference that could be causing this from a cellular signal? Or to somehow stop the feedback from the stove into the system?

Any input would be greatly appreciated as I feel I am running out of options.
Click to expand...
I literally had the exact same problem last spring.
What I ended up doing was powering the living-room off several extension cords so nothing was plugged into the suspect circuit.
I divided up the loads, and put the cable modem + entertainment center on different circuit (kitchen GFCI). I was suspicious of the cable modem and anything with a coax connection like the TV as they have a parallel path to ground thru the coax and have internal surge suppression circuits (capacitors and MOV's) that can go bad.
I'd say 50% if AFCI problems I find in new appliances are with that internal circuit.
1671729398922.png
That night the bedroom AFCI tripped which had one of the extension cords to the livingroom.
Turns out the problem was a 'vintage' lamp that had just been 'rewired' so the cable box was off the hook.
 
kwired said:
Presumably they have the same logic boards in them whether plug on neutral or not.
Click to expand...
Sorry I mispoke. The breakers that trip don't have a load terminal on them. I'll try swapping them with the type that have the load terminal. I'm not sure why some have terminals, but they might measure the neutral current and that might make them more accurate.
 
ramsy said:
Ground fault devices only trip on downstream events, and can't detect anything upstream, much less smoldering bus stabs, high-impedance N-G leakage from charcoal outlets, or carbonized devices, typical in existing wiring.

Tying to prove sustained arcs in residential applications is not the best function of AFCI's.
Click to expand...
Yes you are right, and is why the breaker in my situation actually tripped for a concerning situation - because it eventually developed a ground fault. An AFCI without GFP protection likely continues to hold just like a standard thermal mag breaker would have in that situation.

Hard to prove sustained arcs in residential simply because it is difficult to sustain arcs at only 120 volts, and to differentiate them from normal switching arcing on top of that.
 
Jraef said:
It's been shown that AFCI breakers are sensitive to RF signals, you can watch some demos of that on YouTube.
Click to expand...
I second that :) . I had a situation in a Jersey City, NJ high rise apt. where the security guards claimed that each morning when they came in, the GFCI breakers for the de-icing equipment had tripped. I asked if they were using their walkie-talkies to communicate with the front desk when they were doing their rounds and they said yes. I proved this when I took one of their radios, went into one of the electrical closet and just keyed the mic. All (6) GFCI breakers tripped at once. All the branch circuit wiring was done in EMT. The guards are not going into electric closets on their rounds. However, if they are in the area of the de-icing cables and they key the mic on the radio, the cables act like an antenna and the breaker(s) will trip.

What does this have to do with ASFCI's ? I'm guessing that these breakers have similar electronics internally that are subject to RF interference in some way. I don't see any way you can protect the breaker from RF. Even if it were possible to "tin foil" them I believe the interference is coming back on the branch circuit wiring that is acting like an antenna. This is a manufacturing problem IMHO.
 
ptonsparky said:
IDK anything about RFI. Is it possible to change the frequency that the radios are using? Channels?
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, I don't think that would help because the electronics inside GFCIs would need to have very narrow selectivity at the particular RF frequency band being used in order to distinguish one frequency from another. I think what's going on is that the semiconductor junctions inside the GFCI electronics are rectifying the RF, and thereby producing a signal that's proportional to the instantaneous amplitude (i.e., strength) of the RF signal. This would be just like a crystal set receiver where a diode detects AM broadcast signals. And so the the RF interference detected (i.e., demodulated) within the GFCI electronics can then cause it to trip. When you key up a two-way radio, the RF will suddenly come on, and that turn-on itself could create a step in a detected RF level which then trips the GFCI. I think the GFCI/AFCI manufacturers need to have more filtering and/or other measures to reduce their susceptibility to RF.
 
I didn't notice....was it mentioned whether the electric cooktop is induction? Obviously induction cooktops use an intensely high magnetic field to induce heating in any ferrous metal ( a cast iron pan for example).
In my opinion AFCI devices were introduced too early and should have only been allowed after extensive testing AND assurances by manufactures that they WILL comply to the requirements required by the AFCI for a RELIABLE device.
Before AFCI devices you could talk to many homeowners who have never had a circuit breaker trip. Now it is a relatively common occurance. If it was an ACTUAL arc-fault situation great, but in my experiences its not. Its nuisance tripping. The breaker manufacturers and the appliance manufactures just sit there and do nothing. They basically put an unproven technology out there and hoped for the best. Its the electrician who has to stand there and figure out why a microwave oven, which is on a dedicated 20 amp branch circuit, is randomly for no reason, AND most of the time, tripping when its not even operating?
The largest crime of all?
The 70 dollar difference between a conventional CB an AFCI CB ! They put a 5 dollar chip in a regular CB and make god knows how much profit.
Maybe ( like GFCI's did) AFCI'S will improve to where they are as reliable as a conventional CB, but there not there yet.
The biggest problem is the inability to recognize the causes of the tripping. In 35 years of being an electrician and diagnosing I've never seen anything like it. Your only recourse usually is to just take the AFCI CB out and put in a conventional CB.
 
goldstar said:
I second that :) . I had a situation in a Jersey City, NJ high rise apt. where the security guards claimed that each morning when they came in, the GFCI breakers for the de-icing equipment had tripped. I asked if they were using their walkie-talkies to communicate with the front desk when they were doing their rounds and they said yes. I proved this when I took one of their radios, went into one of the electrical closet and just keyed the mic. All (6) GFCI breakers tripped at once. All the branch circuit wiring was done in EMT. The guards are not going into electric closets on their rounds. However, if they are in the area of the de-icing cables and they key the mic on the radio, the cables act like an antenna and the breaker(s) will trip.

What does this have to do with ASFCI's ? I'm guessing that these breakers have similar electronics internally that are subject to RF interference in some way. I don't see any way you can protect the breaker from RF. Even if it were possible to "tin foil" them I believe the interference is coming back on the branch circuit wiring that is acting like an antenna. This i
Click to expand...

goldstar said:
At one time all AFCI's had GFP component to them just a 30 mA trip vs a 4-6 mA trip. That not the case for all of them anymore though. (Somehow can't get cursor outside of the "quote box" Phat fingers pressed some unknown key combination and here I am)
Click to expand...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top