Coffee maker keeps tripping CAFCI.

zappy

zappy

Senior Member
Location
CA.
Hi, so I have a customer, she told me she was having an issue with the CAFCI breaker tripping in the kitchen/coffee bar. She says she tripped it a lot. I replaced it with a new one, and told her to only put one appliance on that circuit. It did not help. Could it be the coffee maker arcing inside? Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated!
 
zappy said:
Hi, so I have a customer, she told me she was having an issue with the CAFCI breaker tripping in the kitchen/coffee bar. She says she tripped it a lot. I replaced it with a new one, and told her to only put one appliance on that circuit. It did not help. Could it be the coffee maker arcing inside? Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated!
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Sure it COULD be the coffee maker arcing, but it's far more likely that AFCIs are a scam. This is a common thing happening more these days now that PWM digital controls are in everything. The AFCI just thinks there is an arc. My solution is to use a regular breaker, but code something something blah blah blah
 
Could be the gfci portion of the breaker tripping if there is a fault in the heating element. Try a regular breaker with ground fault outlet to see if it does the same thing.
 
hillbilly1 said:
Could be the gfci portion of the breaker tripping if there is a fault in the heating element. Try a regular breaker with ground fault outlet to see if it does the same thing.
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Ohm meter may not find that either, but if electrician had a Megger tester
 
Had the same problem with GFCI's in a commercial kitchen and a certain manufacturers coffee makers.
It isn't the answer you might want but they decided to go with a different brand of coffee makers which solved the problem.
 
So I talked to the customer some more she says this has been happening for a few years with other appliances too, and also when she plugs them into a different circuit with a AFCI it doesn't trip, so I'm wondering if there's something wrong with the actual circuit. I'm gonna go and open up the outlets and see if there's any loose wire nuts. Would a megger show any series, or parallel arching?
 
ya that what meggers are for.
Depends on how you hock them up.

are these old afci they could have a GFCi function still. Have you swapped out for a new afci.
i doubt the afci is find something since they don’t work lol
 
zappy said:
So I talked to the customer some more she says this has been happening for a few years with other appliances too, and also when she plugs them into a different circuit with a AFCI it doesn't trip, so I'm wondering if there's something wrong with the actual circuit. I'm gonna go and open up the outlets and see if there's any loose wire nuts. Would a megger show any series, or parallel arching?
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Since the appliance works on other AFCI protected circuits maybe there is something wrong with the circuit and the AFCI is doing its job. Nail or screw in wire that doesn't make show as a fault until the circuit heats up.

I'm assuming the receptacle is a GFCI. Maybe when the GFCI is under load its doing something that is tripping the AFCI? Have you tried replacing it? Or install a standard receptacle and replace breaker with a DF.
 
curt swartz said:
Since the appliance works on other AFCI protected circuits maybe there is something wrong with the circuit and the AFCI is doing its job. Nail or screw in wire that doesn't make show as a fault until the circuit heats up.

I'm assuming the receptacle is a GFCI. Maybe when the GFCI is under load its doing something that is tripping the AFCI? Have you tried replacing it? Or install a standard receptacle and replace breaker with a DF.
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Hi, thank you for your reply. What is a DF?
 
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