- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
Also some newer AFCIs won't trip for that type of fault. GE and one of the Eaton lines, BR I think, no longer have a ground fault detection circuit.
AFCI Troubleshooting
- Thread starter mkgrady
- Start date
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mkgrady
Senior Member
- Location
- Massachusetts
Found the Problem
Found the Problem
There were neutrals tied together from seperate circuits. Dumb mistake but I first ruled that out because I thought that would cause a trip immediately. I now know that it takes a load on the circuit before it will trip. Thanks for all the responses
Found the Problem
There were neutrals tied together from seperate circuits. Dumb mistake but I first ruled that out because I thought that would cause a trip immediately. I now know that it takes a load on the circuit before it will trip. Thanks for all the responses
- Occupation
- Licensed Electrician
Right on. Glad you found the problem.
Interesting that the wiring was done like that. I would have though it would have Ben an inadvertant neutral to EGC connection.
peter d
Senior Member
- Location
- New England
All AFCI's should be put in one large pile and ground to dust with the biggest and heaviest compactors ever made.
- Location
- Placerville, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Retired PV System Designer
Glad you found it!
The immediate trip on detection of a downstream G to N connection (or most other neutral faults) is not an inherent part of the basic GF detector circuit in a GFCI breaker. Instead it is an additional set of components that are also present by default in a current GFCI receptacle or breaker.
That function is usually not present even in an AFCI breaker that incorporates GF detection.
JFletcher
Senior Member
- Location
- Williamsburg, VA
:thumbsup:
dmxtothemax
Senior Member
- Location
- Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Are you sure you are not confussing AFCI'S and GFCI'S ?
tripping threashold of 30ma sounds like a gfci to me ?
:?
- Occupation
- Licensed Electrician
Art 100 definition has a handy fine print note that explains the UL standard.
eta, I see you are from Oz. It might be different for your ground fault trip levels.
eta, I see you are from Oz. It might be different for your ground fault trip levels.
- Location
- Massachusetts
30 ma is the low end of GFP, not GFCI.
goldstar
Senior Member
- Location
- New Jersey
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
All good advice so far. I apologize for sounding basic but if you can't find some obvious problem with the circuit then I would start by breaking the circuit in half. You wired the house so you should know apoprox. where the half way point is. If you open the circuit in the middle try plugging a load in on the energized part. If the problem disappears then you know it's in the back half. If it remains keep breaking that front circuit down until you find the problem.
- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
All of the original branch circuit/feeder AFCIs had a ground fault function that tripped between 30 and 50 mA. Some of the new combination type AFCIs no longer have a ground fault trip function.
Strange as the AFCI having GF was what in my opinion the best part about it. We've beat the subject to death about the AFCI's actusl ability to detect an actual arcing fault, L-N, series, etc w/o involving a ground. Take away the GF and?
Interesting the you included these brands together as I know from a very reliable source that C-H did originally manufacture and name brand GFCI breakers for GE when they were first introduced.
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