Bonding/grounding and AFCI breakers

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mopowr steve

mopowr steve

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Electrical contractor
One of my experiences with random tripping involves wall speed controls (set speed adjustment styles) for paddle fans.
When changing speeds there has been both inductive kickback from fans and in many cases the actual contacts within the switch don’t line up well with the detent of the knob and you can hear some arcing. My experience with this has caused various unassociated circuits afci’s to trip.
Years ago I even checked out several different models and manufactures with the same results.
Another confirmed problematic random tripping came from a plasma screen TV power supply. When-ever the screen would go to bright white, the power supply must have ramped up in frequency to drive the white screen and would also mess with unassociated circuits afci’s.
 
Little Bill

Little Bill

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ptonsparky said:
Use your fault locator. stick Probes to sheetrock. It works just as if you were looking for a ground fault on buried underground. Saves a lot of holes.
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You're link didn't work but Synchro posted another link.
I have that locator. I usually have to stick a screwdriver or the stake that came with it to ground to. How do you do that on sheetrock? Surely you don't push the probes into the sheetrock either.
 
ptonsparky

ptonsparky

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Little Bill said:
You're link didn't work but Synchro posted another link.
I have that locator. I usually have to stick a screwdriver or the stake that came with it to ground to. How do you do that on sheetrock? Surely you don't push the probes into the sheetrock either.
Click to expand...
In my case the metallic trim of the exterior door and IIRC, the gutters were energized. One lead of transmitter to earth, one to trim. The house was being remodeled at the time, so Yes, probes to sheetrock. Just enough for needle to swing.
 
kwired

kwired

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NE Nebraska
Multiple devices tripping at same time is likely because of some sort of interference, that may not even be on protected side of device(s).
 
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Phillip Land

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Rome, Ga, US
kwired said:
Multiple devices tripping at same time is likely because of some sort of interference, that may not even be on protected side of device(s).
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I'm wondering if a high quality whole house surge protector would help. All of his neighbors are fairly close and none of them have this issue

also, I just remember that he has a ups set up for his home office.. could that somehow be causing this?
Now I'm just grasping at straws..
 
tortuga

tortuga

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Oregon
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Electrical Design
The house sounds like a lemon, DIY , flip or owner built.

electrofelon said:
FIFY 🐈.
I am not a fan whatsoever of AFCI's but everyone jumps to nuisance tripping when, IMO, vast majority of problems are wiring issues.
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like fellon and others have said the vast majority of problems are wiring issues or construction issues, until the suspect inside wiring is ruled out with good test procedures I would not bother speculating further.
If the house is less than a few years old its worth doing a permit history search and see if there is an original builder / developer that is legally responsible to warranty it.
 
ActionDave

ActionDave

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I used to have a similar attitude that afci trips were wiring errors, but I have seen too many nuisance trips on clean circuits.

Less than a year ago my brother in law bought a new Samsung fridge. It would work fine for days then trip the breaker. Siemans dual function afci was the culprit. I'm 100% sure because I checked every inch of the circuit. Ditched the dual function breaker and went to straight GFCI and never a problem since.

Watched Mike Holt on one of his live videos last year, he put every circuit in his house on dual function breakers and now he has some elaborate system of dots on his panel cover to keep track of what breakers are tripping and what's been swapped with what.
 
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retirede

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Illinois
ActionDave said:
Watched Mike Holt on one of his live videos last year, he put every circuit in his house on dual function breakers and now he has some elaborate system of dots on his panel cover to keep track of what breakers are tripping and what's been swapped with what.
Click to expand...

That right there would indicate to me that this technology is not ready for prime time. If an electrical professional such as Mike needs this level of tracking to figure out what’s going on, how is a homeowner supposed to be able to deal with it?
 
ActionDave

ActionDave

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retirede said:
That right there would indicate to me that this technology is not ready for prime time. If an electrical professional such as Mike needs this level of tracking to figure out what’s going on, how is a homeowner supposed to be able to deal with it?
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Tell me about it. If my brother in law didn't have me to come troubleshoot he would have been in the thousands of dollars between appliance techs and electrical troubleshooting, plus then time and aggravation trying to sort through it all.

What's even worse than that, with no objective way to test AFCIs, how do we know that all the tweaking being done on each new release isn't rendering them less effective at tripping on a legitimate fire preventing arc? Can you imagine a medical or automotive manufacturer being able to mandate something this fraudulent?
 
tortuga

tortuga

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Location
Oregon
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Electrical Design
ActionDave said:
I used to have a similar attitude that afci trips were wiring errors, but I have seen too many nuisance trips on clean circuits.
Click to expand...
How many AFCi issues to you get per month on clean circuits that you / your company installed?
VS calls do you get like the OP got Phillip got, where he is asked to troubleshoot a presumably newer house?
Not being snarky just genuinely interested.
 
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