AFCI Testing / Diagnostic tools

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Jake7939 said:
I am looking for feedback on effective AFCI Diagnostic tools.
Ie. Siemens Intelli-Arc or others.

In particular, I am interested in a proven tool that you use with
confidence for troubling shooting the cause(s) of nuisance AFCI
breaker tripping.

Thank you in advance.
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Multimeter should be able to help you troubleshoot most AFCI issues.
 
Wiring and installation issues yes but it will do nothing to diagnose problems caused by something that doesn't work in the first place. Looks like the Intelli-Arc is good at showing us how bad AFCI breakers really are.

-Hal
 
Jake, it's only worth it if you want to physically see what the arc fault breakers are seeing.
Mind you that many phenominums you see on the intelliarc, actually are being seen by everything on the same phase and sometimes opposite phases within the panel.
 
hbiss said:
Are you sure that they didn't just replace the AFCI breakers with a regular ones? With those fan speed controls nuisance tripping that you couldn't do anything about and now you want me to buy a new TV I would be done with you.

-Hal
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Yea, I agree with you.
It's a tuffy, but most of my customers have faith in me and I will go to modest lengths to solve issues.
I was there when they used another TV from there bedroom which didn't have any issues as I used the intelliarc with it.

I try to explain that I'm stuck between the "powers that be" and the real world issues as it relates to these products.
 
One more thing Jake, as with many trouble calls if you can't replicate a random issue that caused the call then you're pretty hard pressed to find the issue.
 
We meg our installs ,which is about all the intelle-arc meter does anyways.

The only thing we really can't meg are electronics and that which creates radio frequency interference

But they can be unplugged.....

~RJ~
 
mopowr steve said:
Yea, I agree with you.
It's a tuffy, but most of my customers have faith in me and I will go to modest lengths to solve issues.
I was there when they used another TV from there bedroom which didn't have any issues as I used the intelliarc with it.

I try to explain that I'm stuck between the "powers that be" and the real world issues as it relates to these products.
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Did you charge for this time?
 
But they can be unplugged.....
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About all that is going to do is confirm that there is some kind of problem with the AFCI breaker. TV works fine, breaker trips. If it was an old TV I might decide that it might be a good time to replace it if I had the money but if it was fairly new, guess what is going to happen, "powers that be" or not.

It's pretty bad when a customer can't use the equipment he chooses because somebody says he has to have an ill-designed "safety feature" that has problems that won't allow it to operate. And that's pretty much the way a customer sees it.

-Hal
 
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ptonsparky said:
Did you charge for this time?
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As for now NO until some concrete way to diagnose and solve problems with these arc faults becomes apparent. Or a way to definitively say a product is or is not at fault.

Otherwise chalk it it up as experience, we'll be better off in the long run.
 
hbiss said:
About all that is going to do is confirm that there is some kind of problem with the AFCI breaker. TV works fine, breaker trips. If it was an old TV I might decide that it might be a good time to replace it if I had the money but if it was fairly new, guess what is going to happen, "powers that be" or not.

It's pretty bad when a customer can't use the equipment he chooses because somebody says he has to have an ill-designed "safety feature" that has problems that won't allow it to operate. And that's pretty much the way a customer sees it.

-Hal
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The TV that my customer had was in fact older and was moved from there old house to the new one I did.
Now I am under suspicion that either the frequency of the PWM power supply caused enough interference to mess with the arc fault when it had to supply enough power to drive a full bright screen or in fact the power supply was defective, say by a previous lightning strike. I'll never know.
Unless I go back to school and relearn oscilloscopes and testing procedures for new electronics and want to spend the time doing it.
 
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romex jockey said:
We meg our installs ,which is about all the intelle-arc meter does anyways.

The only thing we really can't meg are electronics and that which creates radio frequency interference

But they can be unplugged.....

~RJ~
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How fun is that, removing dimmers, unplugging items, disconnecting paddle fans to do a Meg test so you don't damage anything?
And who knows it maybe one of the items you've disconnected that is the reason the arc fault tripped.
 
mopowr steve said:
As for now NO until some concrete way to diagnose and solve problems with these arc faults becomes apparent. Or a way to definitively say a product is or is not at fault.

Otherwise chalk it it up as experience, we'll be better off in the long run.
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It is what I do, and it makes the customer a bit more understanding when they aren't hit with a large diagnostic billing.

We always warn customers about AFCIs when we install them.
 
mopowr steve said:
How fun is that, removing dimmers, unplugging items, disconnecting paddle fans to do a Meg test so you don't damage anything?
And who knows it maybe one of the items you've disconnected that is the reason the arc fault tripped.
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It's a tried /true sure thing verifying my wiring, what is external is not of my concern and/or liability as an EC

I even asked at our NEMA speaker , who had his Siemens AFCI tester ,last IAEI meeting

Of course, this was after he put down ALL other make /models of afci testers w/o explaining WHY they were not qualified to test circuitry.

Ergo, the afci advocates continue to test parameters of functionality they not only can not specifically quantify, they've now a dedicated meter promoting their confusion and conjecture

God luck with that sir

~RJ~
 
mopowr steve said:
...Had the homeowner change the TV and they never reported having a problem since.
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Good on you for troubleshooting and finding it, but man does it sit wrong with me that we accept those solutions: Telling customers to replace perfectly good appliances because voodoo circuit breakers can't play well with them?

I'm still waiting to eat my words, because we're coming up on two decades and I still ain't convinced the millions spent on these devices has done a damn thing.
 
big john said:
Good on you for troubleshooting and finding it, but man does it sit wrong with me that we accept those solutions: Telling customers to replace perfectly good appliances because voodoo circuit breakers can't play well with them?

I'm still waiting to eat my words, because we're coming up on two decades and I still ain't convinced the millions spent on these devices has done a damn thing.
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I feel ya bro!
 
I have a building with new wiring, new siemens panels, new siemens afci breakers and the electrical contractor cant figure out why the dedicated circuit for the GE refrigirator keeps tripping. the GC even replaced the refrigirator and it is still tripping once every two or three days. i hate those new afci siemens breakers.
 
RRJ said:
I have a building with new wiring, new siemens panels, new siemens afci breakers and the electrical contractor cant figure out why the dedicated circuit for the GE refrigirator keeps tripping. the GC even replaced the refrigirator and it is still tripping once every two or three days. i hate those new afci siemens breakers.
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Not all buildings are required to have AFCI. What is your building use?
 
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