Arc Fault Breakers

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vilasman

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It has been my expierence that you cannot put a light fixture on a circuit that has a arc fault breaker on it, is this correct?
 
I agree with John, but out of curiosity, what code cycle are you under?

Roger
 
vilasman said:
It has been my expierence that you cannot put a light fixture on a circuit that has a arc fault breaker on it, is this correct?
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If its an old fixture and has a bond strap from neutral to the housing, it will guaranteed trip a AFCI or GFCI.

Other than that gotcha, there's no problem with'em on lights.
 
Well my first expierence with arc fault breakers was while I was finishing a new house job, that 3 other groups of electricians had worked on, in PG county, Md, that had been started 5 years ago now, before arc faults were required, and I failed inspection, for the lack of arc faults and was getting re inspected the next day. :)
That night I found out that the brave souls before me had wired 2 bedrooms on a piece of 3 wire :)
Looking at the arc fault and seeing that neutral tail hanging out of it I reasoned that I had a problem. And I had never seen a arc fault in the flesh before that afternoon.
I dont remember how I fixed that, I think one bedroom is on the circuit with the attic light, which was by itself and the other bedroom I cut the red out of it and just used the black and the white, but as I remember , I had to rewire the lights to the 2 rooms to get it to hold.
There may have been a flourescent light in the closets though, that may have done it.
 
I think you answered your own question? The problem wasn't the presence of lights on the circuit, it was the multiwire circuit with the breaker that wasn't rated for it. There are now some manufacturers of 120/240 2-pole AFCI breakers for this problem. Cutler Hammer for one, there may be others, I don't know.

Magnetic ballasts used to trip AFCI's, I think they may have bumped up the GFP on the breaker to compensate. I have installed electronic ballasts on AFCI's lately with no ill effects. :)
 
vilasman said:
Well my first expierence with arc fault breakers was while I was finishing a new house job, that 3 other groups of electricians had worked on, in PG county, Md, that had been started 5 years ago now, before arc faults were required, and I failed inspection, for the lack of arc faults and was getting re inspected the next day. :)
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The work should have been done to the NEC cycle being enforced at the time of the original permit approvals. Unless newer peremits were issued, the AFCI's should not have been required.
 
GE already makes 2-pole, recent SQ-D agit-prop claims they'll be introducing them soon too.
 
77401 said:
We better get practice with this cuz the '08 NEC 210.12B is requiring AFCI everywhere in dwellings.
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I see the future, and hot panels it is. I bet noisy ones too. Unless of course they don't get combination type into breakers, in which case I see the future and its lots of boxes mounted under the panels for the combination devices to go into. Its getting stupider by the cycle.
 
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