Arc fault nightmare

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kwired said:
Seem's entirely possible that the neighbor's AFCI's may trip when the treadmill is being used - and they (or their electrician) will be even more confused as to why.
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I've been thinking this could be very possible, as some new condos that I've done at times have undetectable events that have caused arc faults to trip.

Have one of the customers recently say that living room tripped 2 times one day, so I hooked up the intelliarc tool and went through things and found nothing. So I explained some of the notorious issues affecting the arc fault breakers ,one of which; is wall mount paddle fan speed controls when adjusted can cause it as well as radio transmissions. This is when the owner said that the neighbor behind is a police officer, is it possible he came home that day with squad car and made radio transmission, I don't know. Or could it be the adjacent condo neighbor adjusting a paddle fan speed.

Has anyone on this forum hooked up a recorder and tried to tie these arc fault trips to events were not there to catch?
 
mopowr steve said:
I've been thinking this could be very possible, as some new condos that I've done at times have undetectable events that have caused arc faults to trip.

Have one of the customers recently say that living room tripped 2 times one day, so I hooked up the intelliarc tool and went through things and found nothing. So I explained some of the notorious issues affecting the arc fault breakers ,one of which; is wall mount paddle fan speed controls when adjusted can cause it as well as radio transmissions. This is when the owner said that the neighbor behind is a police officer, is it possible he came home that day with squad car and made radio transmission, I don't know. Or could it be the adjacent condo neighbor adjusting a paddle fan speed.

Has anyone on this forum hooked up a recorder and tried to tie these arc fault trips to events were not there to catch?
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Just curious, what brand / model was this AFCI?

As I have been following the radio interference issue, it seems to be on HF. Police would be on VHF or UHF. I wouldn't rule that out, but just would like to point out that, so far, VHF/UHF haven't seemed to be a problem.
 
Still getting complaints about CH breakers as of this month.

http://www.arrl.org/forum/topics/view/1156

I concur with K4WFM. I received my replacement breakers from Eaton this January and finally installed them this Sunday. About 80% of the issue was resolved. However last nights operations began tripping the Arc Fault breakers again. This occurred mostly on 40m.
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K8MHZ said:
Just curious, what brand / model was this AFCI?

As I have been following the radio interference issue, it seems to be on HF. Police would be on VHF or UHF. I wouldn't rule that out, but just would like to point out that, so far, VHF/UHF haven't seemed to be a problem.
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Siemens, typically 20 amp afci.
 
GoldDigger said:
There is such good coupling through the bus bars that I would not expect either of those moves to make a difference, but it is worth trying if all else fails.
Of the two, I would start by separating the wires and by keeping treadmill circuit hot and neutral as close to each other as possible. Even put that breaker closest to the neutral bar to improve that.
Note: theory only, not field tested!
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This is true. The two breakers that are tripping are not near the dedicated non arc-fault breaker I installed for the treadmill. I more that breaker to the bottom of the panel, 7 free spaces down, same breakers tripped. I moved the tripping arc-fault circuits to different breakers, the new breakers tripped. I moved them to different locations and they tripped. It is a problem with just these two circuits and nothing else. What could be connected on each of these circuits that reacts to the frequency of the treadmill? Ceiling fan remotes? Flat screen TV? The basement 60" flat screen TV is on one of the breakers when it trips and the TV is on when they are on the treadmill.

When I had interference with an intercom system the intercom tech told me to twist the last foot of intercom wire to reduce interference and that worked. Do you think twisting the hot and neutral wires before they hit the breaker would have any affect?
 
delfadelfa said:
This is true. The two breakers that are tripping are not near the dedicated non arc-fault breaker I installed for the treadmill. I more that breaker to the bottom of the panel, 7 free spaces down, same breakers tripped. I moved the tripping arc-fault circuits to different breakers, the new breakers tripped. I moved them to different locations and they tripped. It is a problem with just these two circuits and nothing else. What could be connected on each of these circuits that reacts to the frequency of the treadmill? Ceiling fan remotes? Flat screen TV? The basement 60" flat screen TV is on one of the breakers when it trips and the TV is on when they are on the treadmill.

When I had interference with an intercom system the intercom tech told me to twist the last foot of intercom wire to reduce interference and that worked. Do you think twisting the hot and neutral wires before they hit the breaker would have any affect?
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I'm not too optimistic about it, but it certainly shouldn't hurt anything either.
 
delfadelfa said:
What could be connected on each of these circuits that reacts to the frequency of the treadmill? Ceiling fan remotes? Flat screen TV? The basement 60" flat screen TV is on one of the breakers when it trips and the TV is on when they are on the treadmill.

When I had interference with an intercom system the intercom tech told me to twist the last foot of intercom wire to reduce interference and that worked. Do you think twisting the hot and neutral wires before they hit the breaker would have any affect?
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The main thing that is probably different about these two circuits is that they are drawing more than 5A all the time, allowing the series arc detection function to work.
Other circuits either have lighter loads on them or the loads are not turned on while the treadmill is in use.

The basement 60" flat screen TV is on one of the breakers when it trips and the TV is on when they are on the treadmill.
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sounds about right, for example.
 
Use a long heavy-duty extension cord on the treadmill. If it still trips we know the extension cord is a tool with no impact. Then plug the extension cord into an afci circuit that has not been tripping. If it trips, it is an acfi vs. treadmill issue and probably not an afci vs. circuit issue.
 
K8MHZ said:
Yes, it's possible, and such a 'remote tripping' has been done and proven and put on YouTube when a ham radio was tripping breakers in a neighbor's house that was 400 feet away.

CH BR's, IIRC.
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So the possibility of entertaining a service call for afci trips which have no offending origin within the residence exists?

Followed by some 'signature waveform' conjecture ?

Is there an AFCI manufacturers report out there detail this signature waveform's specific operating parameters?

I.E.~what trips them?

~RJ~
 
romex jockey said:
So the possibility of entertaining a service call for afci trips which have no offending origin within the residence exists?

Followed by some 'signature waveform' conjecture ?

Is there an AFCI manufacturers report out there detail this signature waveform's specific operating parameters?

I.E.~what trips them?

~RJ~
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That information is top secret and is more secure then some of our national security top secret information.
 
K8MHZ said:
Most definitely.
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How would such a service call be resolved? Assuming you can even determine where the interference is coming from, short of litigation how can you require a neighbor to change something in his system or behavior that is not causing a problem on his own property?
 
ggunn said:
How would such a service call be resolved? Assuming you can even determine where the interference is coming from, short of litigation how can you require a neighbor to change something in his system or behavior that is not causing a problem on his own property?
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Legally, if the breakers are tripping due to a licensed amateur radio operator with a legal station, there is nothing that can be done to the radio operator. The AFCI's that are tripping are defective. The defect is they are not able to operate in an RF environment.

Some of these situations have not been resolved. AFAIK, Eaton is still working on upgrades to handle this problem.

I do know that at least one situation has been solved by switching from CH to Square D. IIRC, a SqD sub-panel was put in for the AFCI circuits so they could be protected by SqD AFCI breakers without swapping out the entire main panel.

The big trick with remote tripping is trying to figure out what is causing it. For the cases I have read about, the neighbors of the ham radio operators knew each other and worked together to document and try to resolve the problem.

But what if the the person having the AFCI trouble has no idea there is a radio operation in the vicinity? Ham radio operators often use wire antennas that aren't visible from the streets. They work good, are cheap, easy to make and are aesthetically pleasing. If such a station is making the neighbor's breakers trip, how would you ever figure that out?

At best, we can be aware that remote false tripping is a reality and may be responsible for some hard to solve false trip issues.
 
Maybe we just need a new panel design...where the enclosure is a full Faraday cage to prevent the RF from reaching the defectively designed devices.
 
electricguy61 said:
Is it morally wrong to suggest you remove the AFCI and install a standard breaker:slaphead:?
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Great question. I think before that question is asked, we should ask some more before that.

Is it moral that the manufacturers lied about having a product available that did not actually exist until 10 or more years after they said it existed originally?

Is it moral that the manufacturers have a highly problematic product on the market, and the contractor and end user is forced to pay for most of the cost of the dealing with these problems?

Is it moral the the NEC continues to double down on requiring a troublesome and dubious product, that was based on a lie from the very beginning?

It is moral to require a product that may not even do what we are told it can do?

By the letter of the law, yes, it's morally wrong to suggest an AFCI be removed when it's required by the NEC. But what if the law is immoral in the first place? What if the product that is mandated by the law is fraudulent and worthless? Then it's not a matter of black and white anymore, IMO.
 
peter d said:
Great question. I think before that question is asked, we should ask some more before that.

Is it moral that the manufacturers lied about having a product available that did not actually exist until 10 or more years after they said it existed originally?

Is it moral that the manufacturers have a highly problematic product on the market, and the contractor and end user is forced to pay for most of the cost of the dealing with these problems?

Is it moral the the NEC continues to double down on requiring a troublesome and dubious product, that was based on a lie from the very beginning?

It is moral to require a product that may not even do what we are told it can do?

By the letter of the law, yes, it's morally wrong to suggest an AFCI be removed when it's required by the NEC. But what if the law is immoral in the first place? What if the product that is mandated by the law is fraudulent and worthless? Then it's not a matter of black and white anymore, IMO.
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I think you are confusing 'morally' with 'legally'.
 
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