arc fault breaker

[topend]

Had a customer rearrange/add some electronic equipment (router, computer-type stuff) and the arc fault circuit breaker is nuisance tripping all of the sudden. Any ideas?
Thanks.
Rich

 

[ELA]

More input please.

What type of AFCI, were new loads added to the circuit or just re-arranged on the same circuit? Does it trip immediate or over time?

It has been mentioned many times on this forum that the GFI portion of the AFCI is a likely cause of the fault. (not saying that it cannot be a nuisance trip from electrical noise).

As a suggestion can you measure the leakage current to ground in the circuit. If not then try substituting a GFCI in its place temporarily as a diagnostic tool.

If it trips immediate can you one by one eliminate loads to identify the load/s causing the trip?


From what I have read it seems some manufacturers AFCI breakers are better than others. I favor the ones that have indicators to discriminate between an Arc and a GFI trip.

I think that if I had to deal with AFCIs on a regular basis that I would make a temporary test fixture that allowed me to use my (known good) AFCI of choice (with separate LED indicators). Used as a diagnostic tool only and then removed.

You could install a standard breaker in the customers load center and feed your test AFCI fixture from it, connect the circuit load to your test AFCI fixture.

 

[electricguy61]

Change to standard breaker after inspection?

 

[izak]

yeah, or one worse:

dont land the 'neutral' pigtail from the breaker on the neutral bus, and land the circuit neutral on the neutral bus.

breaker will trip as overcurrent, but not as gfci or afci.
and still looks like afci breaker

but please, put a WIRENUT on the floating neutral pigtail coming from the breaker, so the next guy doesnt get SHOCKED in the panel and discover your little trick.

(thats how i discovered it)