AFCI "Myth"

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quogueelectric said:
Switch on current is taken. Switch off current is not taken. On taken ......... Off not taken...........ON>>>>>>>>>OFF>>>>>>>>>>ON>>>>>>>>>>OFF>>>>>>>>>> Current is taken get over it. Maybe if you taped the switch in the off position..........
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Maybe if we ran the lamp cord to the switch like some propose you can do...
 
al hildenbrand said:
I didn't write the four Code citations I note. I merely saw how they interlink.

Much of 220 references loads, lighting outlets and receptacle outlets, with some exceptions where the singular term outlet is, in fact, used. Either some editorial changes or some re-definition of definitions are in order.
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The switch is not utilizing it is a device capable of interrupting the circuit (closing/opening). A receptacle is not utilizing it is a connecting device but it is ?at the outlet?.

These are NEC definitions and in this light literally neither are outlets until something is used, if your claim that switches qualify as outlets were true a single light [outlet] on a four way system would be at least 4 outlets yet the current is only taken to supply the light at one location, this is proved by the fact if the light were not present there would be no current leaving but it would be capable of leaving at the light location [outlet].

The switch does not take current it sends it or stops it, the receptacle does not use current nor does a light box [outlet] until something is plugged in or connected to it. I don?t wish more wording in the NEC regarding this topic because it is not confusing I think adding more wording will cause confusion.
 
tryinghard said:
the receptacle does not use current nor does a light box [outlet] until something is plugged in or connected to it.
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Even then it does not "use" current. It does not consume power unless it is lighted, has a motion detection device, etc (excluding the power lost across the device contacts and in the internal conductors).
 
480sparky said:
The discussion is about an outlet. An outlet is "A point on the wiring system at which current is taken to supply utilization equipment.". What is attached to that outlet is not an outlet then. The third sentence is about that very utilization equipment. That is why it is irrelevant to the discussion.
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al hildenbrand said:
So, in your mind, "controllers", in the third sentence, are Utilization Equipment?
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. . . . . .
2008 NEC
Article 100
Definitions

Controller. A device or group of devices that serves to govern, in some predetermined manner, the electric power delivered to the apparatus to which it is connected.
(And from the NEC Handbook's explanatory text) A controller may be a remote-controlled magnetic contactor, switch, circuit breaker, or device that is normally used to start and stop motors and other apparatus and, in the case of motors, is required to be capable of interrupting the stalled-rotor current of the motor. Stop-and-start stations and similar control circuit components that do not open the power conductors to the motor are not considered controllers.
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Utilization Equipment. Equipment that utilizes electric energy for electronic, electromechanical, chemical, heating, lighting, or similar purposes.
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The third sentence of the Article 100 Definition of Premises Wiring (System) includes more than just Utilization Equipment. If the list, in the third sentence, were only Utilization Equipment, then, I think that two word term would have been used. And I don't think that the third sentence can be used to say Controllers are Utilization Equipment.

This leaves the third sentence of the Definition of Premises Wiring (System) as something that can't be ignored in the discussion of "points on the wiring system where current is taken."
 
I would like to suggest that when a simple snap switch is used as a controller, there is no "wiring internal" to the controller, and therefore it is still part of the premises wiring system.

And I read "taken" in the definition of outlet to mean "taken out of the wiring system". So a switch is not an outlet. :)

Cheers, Wayne
 
wwhitney said:
I would like to suggest that when a simple snap switch is used as a controller, there is no "wiring internal" to the controller . . .
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If there is no "wiring internal" to a snap switch, and the snap switch is used to control a piece of Utilization Equipment, what does the current, taken by the Utilization Equipment, flow in while it passes between the terminals on the side of the snap switch?
 
al hildenbrand said:
If there is no "wiring internal" to a snap switch, and the snap switch is used to control a piece of Utilization Equipment, what does the current, taken by the Utilization Equipment, flow in while it passes between the terminals on the side of the snap switch?
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Article 100 lacks a definition of wiring. So I am thinking of actual wires, i.e. typically cylindrical conductors usually covered in insulation. The internal parts of the switch conduct electricity but are not wires. They are more like busbars.

Cheers, Wayne
 
wwhitney said:
Article 100 lacks a definition of wiring.
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Neither the Code, nor the IEEE Standard Dictionary of Electrical and Electronic Terms, give a definition, therefore we must rely on the dictionary.
wwhitney said:
So I am thinking of actual wires, i.e. typically cylindrical conductors usually covered in insulation. The internal parts of the switch conduct electricity but are not wires. They are more like busbars.
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What about Busway? Is Busway wiring?

"Wiring" as used in Premises Wiring (System) includes both non-conductive bits and conductive bits.

If a snap switch is good for use in the Premises Wiring (System) as part of "such wiring", then you seem, to me, to be saying a snap switch used as a Controller has no wiring in it but IS wiring that is part of the Premises Wiring (System).

I read the last sentence of Premises Wiring (System) as saying that the "stuff", both the non-conductive and conductive stuff, internal to a Controller, is not included in the Premises Wiring (System).

There is no size designation. A Controller is not limited to only something big enough to have discrete insulated round thin "wire" conductors. . .

The ONLY designation is the "stuff" which is internal. . . internal to a Controller, etc.

A snap switch definitely has an internal volume.
 
al hildenbrand said:
What about Busway? Is Busway wiring?
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I've never worked with busway and have only a vague idea of what it is, so I can't really answer that.

al hildenbrand said:
If a snap switch is good for use in the Premises Wiring (System) as part of "such wiring", then you seem, to me, to be saying a snap switch used as a Controller has no wiring in it but IS wiring that is part of the Premises Wiring (System).
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I think that the Premises Wiring System includes both wiring and the associated non-wiring parts, hence the word System. So a snap switch is a device which is not wiring but is part of the Wiring System. I don't think anyone would call a stick of conduit wiring, but once it is installed with conductors in it the conduit becomes part of the premises wiring system.

Cheers, Wayne
 
wwhitney said:
I don't think anyone would call a stick of conduit wiring, but once it is installed with conductors in it the conduit becomes part of the premises wiring system.
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A snap switch has conductors inside it. . . and the body of the switch that holds the conductors is designed to cover the conductors inside the switch. That sure "quacks" like an Insulated Conductor or a Covered Conductor (Art. 100 Definitions).

My point about busway is that the conductors in it are commonly busbars. The assembly is the "wiring" that can be a feeder or branch circuit. The shape of a conductor doesn't separate it into wiring and non-wiring.

The key turn of word in the third sentence of Premises Wiring (System) is "Such wiring" which refers to "That internal and external wiring. . . etc." . . . all of what is described in the first two sentences. "Such wiring" is all the non-conductive bits and the conductive bits of the (System), except, the third sentence says, what is internal to . . . controllers. Since a snap switch is commonly used as a controller of loads, that simply means "what is internal to a snap switch used as a controller."
 
First, on the points about "busbar" and "conductors in the conduit", I am guilty of using sloppy language. So please substitute "busbar of a switchboard" and "wires in the conduit".

Second, I don't want to rehash the 77 page discussion. Mostly I was just curious as to whether my counterargument to "a switch is an outlet" was novel or not. :)

As to wiring, absent an NEC definition, we will have to disagree. I think that "wiring internal to a controller" does not include the conductors inside a snap switch.

Upon reflection, wiring has two different meanings depending on context; one meaning is roughly "all the wires" (or other field installed conductors like busway) and the other is roughly "everything related to the electrical wires". This ambiguity is even shown in the term "Premises Wiring (System)"--depending on which definition of wiring you are thinking of, you may or may not need to add the word system.

Cheers, Wayne
 
wwhitney said:
Upon reflection, wiring has two different meanings depending on context; one meaning is roughly "all the wires" (or other field installed conductors like busway) and the other is roughly "everything related to the electrical wires". This ambiguity is even shown in the term "Premises Wiring (System)"--depending on which definition of wiring you are thinking of, you may or may not need to add the word system.
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I think this is the crux of the confusion for each of us.
To me, the only way the definition can keep from being sucked into a black hole of fractiousness is if "wiring" means "the complete assembly of what I leave at a customer's occupancy at the end of a good install."

The Article 100 defined terms listed in the third sentence of the Premises Wiring (System) cover a mind numbing number of apparatus. To say that the second instance of "wiring" in the third sentence actually means "wire" means then that only the leads of a luminaire are not part of the Premises Wiring (System), but would leave the lampholder (with its non-wire conductors) and the entire remainder of the luminaire as part of the Premises Wiring (System). That's just plain wrong. Oh, and a porcelain keyless lampholder or a porcelain pullchain lampholder would have no "wires" at all, so they have to be part of the Premises Wiring (System). . .

I'll bet I can keep going. I also bet you can see how trying to make the second instance of "wiring" in the third sentence of Premises Wiring (System) "wire" reduces the meaning to a jumble of contradictions.
 
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al hildenbrand said:
The Article 100 defined terms listed in the third sentence of the Premises Wiring (System) cover a mind numbing number of apparatus. To say that the second instance of "wiring" in the third sentence actually means "wire" means then that only the leads of a luminaire are not part of the Premises Wiring (System), but would leave the lampholder (with its non-wire conductors) and the entire remainder of the luminaire as part of the Premises Wiring (System).
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I don't see it that way at all. I think in the entire definition "wiring" can be taken to mean "wires".

The first sentence of the definition of Premises Wiring (System) explicitly includes "associated hardware, fittings, and wiring devices"; with your definition of wiring, that would be redundant. I don't see a luminaire as falling under "associated hardware, fittings, and wiring devices", so there's no question that the non-wire parts of the luminaire aren't included in the Premises Wiring System. The third sentence then clarifies that the wire parts of the luminaire aren't included, either.

After some thought, here's my current attempt to define wiring: "conductors and any integral insulation or integral overall protection designed to be field installed and field modified". So that includes a section of busway or a piece of THHN or NM cable, but not the conductors inside a snap switch or a receptacle.

Cheers, Wayne
 
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