afci

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andyrob

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I just ran into a tripping problem on afci's. I have 3 closets with flouresant fixtures. One closet is on one circuit and the other 2 closets are on the other circuit. All 3 fixtures trip their afci. I asked one of our other electricians and he said he's had no trouble with this and done it many times. The ballasts are electronic.
Any ideas?
 
Re: afci

Instant or occasional? Does it only happen when the switch is flipped or after a period of operation?

Will it trip if something is plugged in on a receptical somewhere else on the branch with the light off. If so suspect a bootleg elsewhere. Some of the light's return neutral current could leak through a bootleg gnd elsewhere and cause a trip.

If the L/N/G are disconnected at the panel and nothing is plugged in, you should read infinite ohms between the branch gnd and neutral. Anything else and there's a bootleg gnd hiding somewhere.
 
Re: afci

After seeing a lot of the AFCI posts, I think that very few trips are due to arc faults. Most will be the equipment or more likely a neutral to ground connection in a box.
Its similar to GFCI's years ago, when one would trip, it had to be a "bad" GFCI.
 
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Tom, how true.
My supplier often tells me that they still get back numerous 'bad' GFCI receptacles and 'bad' AFCI breakers.
Almost ALL come back from the same few contractors. Coincidence??
 
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That reminds me, of it must be a "bad breaker" as it trips as soon as you turn it on. I have had one bad breaker in 25 years, the rest are due to dead short on the load side.
Last fall at the IAEI 75th anniversary meeting, I finially understood why you must have an AFCI tester. The test button does not simulate an arc, only trips the breaker. With a AFCI tester, it simulates an arc. By isolating parts of the circuit, the problem can be found. The best AFCI testers also do voltage drop, if there is a high voltage drop and the AFCI is tripping, now that probably is a arc fault or damage.
 
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http://www.sylvania.com/forum/pdfs/faq0011-0297.pdf This web site allows current to ground how U.L. allows this i don't know. Their is no U.L. spec on GF portion of AFCI. Each manuf. can have own value. The Hammmer's is around 28 to 30 ma. Not true GF, for AFCI needs load applied, GF trips immediately on grounded neutral. I call the Hammers 800 and test button does a true arc test to electronics. They do have a GF & AFCI product with two test functions. Maybe noise is tripping AFCI for florescent lite operates around 38khz to 42khz.
 
Re: afci

Electronic ballast create harmonics, in another word, it causes the neutral to carry some other signal or disturbance the AFCI will act and will trip.
 
Re: afci

Thanks for all of the great input. I called Sylvainia tech help and they said that electronic ballasts were not recommended for residential applications. I had to really pry to get more info. They said that the quick-tronic ballasts have an inherent leak from nuetral to ground of about 1 to 2 ma. This is so they can meet FCC regulations for radio freq. interference. They don't recommend putting more than 2 ballasts on one gfci because the ground fault current approaches the limit allowwed by the gfci. Apparently the nuet. to grnd. fault is less on an afci but Sylvainia had no experience with afci's.
Anyway they recommended that I switch to magnetic ballasts Which means I will be sending back about 100 fixtures. I hope this helps someone else.
 
Re: afci

The N/G leakage from these units isn't enough to trip a (correctly working) AFCI. You'd need a lot of them on the same branch to leak enough to get an AFCI trip.

~30-50ma is typical on most AFCI. Newer Cutler's are 30ma and listed/suitable for equip GFP.
 
Re: afci

By Andy: Apparently the nuet. to grnd. fault is less on an afci but Sylvainia had no experience with afci's.
Click to expand...
AFCI's have a 30 ma. GFP circuit in them. Which is higher than the 5ma that the GFCI has. Some earlyer ITE AFCI's did have a lower trip point and could even be triped by a GFCI tester set to 4ma but The newer ones are 30ma. and have a smaller foot print. (don't hang over the neutral bar) Another common problem is lighted switches that are using the ground as the return path instead of the neutral. any thing that has a light pulling off the ground will add up like those plug strips that have that light that tell you if the grounding is good.
Just some food for thought.
 
Re: afci

Just to let you know, When I isolated the ground wire from the flouresant fixture, the light worked and the afci did not trip. If I connected the ground and openned the neut at the fixtire the afci did not trip. Of course I didn't expect the light to work but I wanted to be sure it was the ballast. Thanks again.
 
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