What am I missing?

M

MattShek

Member
I have a customer with a unique situation that I'm hoping someone can help explain. Thanks in advance!!

Overview - the customer has a 100 amp sub-panel that was installed for a kitchen and laundry addition that was added to the home a few years ago. I wired the addition, so I can verify that the laundry room is a dedicated circuit, and not tied into either of the kitchen small appliance branch circuits. All circuits are GE 20 amp dual function AFCI/GFCI breakers.
The customer's washing machine will operate with no issues at all, it has never tripped the breaker or had any other problems while running on it's own. However, whenever the customer is in the kitchen and uses his vacuum sealer (FoodSaver FM5200 120v 1.06amp - which is plugged into the kitchen countertop circuit) while the washing machine is running it will trip the dedicated circuit breaker for the washing machine. This only happens while both the washer and vacuum sealer are running simultaneously. The kitchen circuit does NOT trip, just the laundry circuit. It happens very consistently, within 30 seconds of him starting to operate the vacuum sealer. No vacuum sealer being used, no problems. He has stated that he will sometimes see a momentary pause in the vacuum sealer's operation right when the laundry breaker trips.

I swapped the laundry circuit breaker with the dishwasher breaker just to verify it wasn't a breaker issue. It tripped the second breaker also. The laundry breaker (circuit 10) and kitchen circuit (14) were both on the same phase (A) in the sub-panel, so I asked him to plug the vacuum sealer into the other kitchen circuit (which was on B phase in the sub-panel) to see if it reacted the same and it did. It would consistently trip the washing machine circuit breaker (only while the washing machine is running) regardless of which kitchen circuit he was using the sealer on. No other appliances are affected by the vacuum sealer, as he operated the microwave, toaster, at the same time with no issues. Those appliances can also be operated at the same time as the washing machine with no issues at all.

My question is what is the vacuum sealer (while plugged into an entirely different circuit, either A or B phase) doing to the laundry circuit that is causing the breaker to trip? I assume it's neutral related somehow and the GFCI/AFCI sees it as a fault, but I can't make sense of it. And why do no other circuits react this way?? Hope I've explained it well enough, and also hope I'm not missing something simple. Thanks again for any input!
 
Some loads, in this case the sealer,can have an inductive load that generates a kickback when the field collapses around a coil. This may affect GFCIs. Not all,but your customer be the lucky one. You could try a panel mount surge suppressor. I've had luck mounting one directly at the load. The sealer may be a challenge.
 
AFCIs will nuisance trip. It has been acknowledged by the manufacturers' that the breakers suck. Too bad for all of us that they are required by code.

Swap out the dual function breaker with a straight GFCI breaker and see if the problem persists. After that you can play all kinds of games like- swap breaker positions in the panel with another breaker that is not tripping, adding extra wire length to the circuit, or trying the latest batch of breakers that have left the factory.
 
I would put the washer on a GFCI receptacle and throw the DF breaker in the trash!
We don't have to use AFCI in the laundry in my area, and I see no reason anyone else should have to. I never hear of washer cords having neither a series arc or parallel.
 
There is some equipment that are so "noisy" that it will induce an appearance of a fault on another breaker. Had a siemens, it did have the on-board and it was showing an arc fault but tested everything and showed nothing to indicate a fault. Contacted siemens tech and found the reason for the trip was the breaker is not looking for the fault until a certain amount of load is applied. The Washer was enough load for the "dirty back feed" from the "unlisted" cheap Amazon device the HO was plugging in on a different circuit the make the afci trip on the washer circuit. Told the HO to not use the "unlisted" device and I never got called back and did check with the HO and it hasn't tripped since.

Have even heard stories of RF from a passing trooper car would trip random AFCI breakers, likely what ever one had a load at the time.
 
Addition to post# 9
Siemens did provide that if a piece of equipment or device would trip the AFCI you could provide the with the specifics of the device and they would research and recalibrate the AFCI to recognize the common device to no longer trip the breaker. But given that the device was unlisted they HO in this case was at fault not thr breaker.
 
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