Eaton AFCI two thumbs DOWN!!!

Status
Not open for further replies.
K8MHZ

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
On a very popular ham radio site, QRZ, one op was complaining about AFCI breakers tripping when he transmitted on his ham radio.

New construction with about 16 Eaton AFCI's. Of course the contractor and electrical sub know absolutely nothing about the problem of AFCI's tripping due to RFI. I called Mr. Fello at Eaton, but basically he's given up. Nice guy, but as someone else mentioned on another board, Eaton probably just wants Ham's to 'go away'. He sent me replacements, even though my originals had the "ham" suffix. The replacements tripped equally. That is to say each time I try to tune up on 20 meters at least 10 trip. It's inconsistant as to which ones trip each time.
Click to expand...

I read the many clever ideas other hams were giving, like try to make filters with ferrite chokes. Not good ideas, just ideas.

I suggested a new subpanel with Square D AFCI breakers. Well, he took 1/2 my advice, but now there is no more false tripping.

Well, I my electrician returned, replaced all of my Eaton Breakers with Square D, and VOILA, everything is hunky-dory. Square D's Homeline will fit (albeit snuggly) in Eaton panels, and they work fine. I'll eventually have a Square D subpanel installed and transfer all the Eaton breakers over to it. What a royal pain. My advice to any Ham building new contruction: INSIST on Square D for your electrical panel. While they are more expensive you will save yourself a lot of time and eventual expense if you want to stay in Ham radio.
Click to expand...

If I was the person that had to replace 16 defective AFCI breakers with another brand, I would at least be talking to a lawyer about a small claims suit to make Eaton cough up the money it took to correct the situation.

I posted to him about the perils of using one brand of breaker in another brand of panel. If I can find a pic of a burnt breaker from a wrong brand type installation I will make sure he sees it.

So, not only is Eaton making a crap product, look what customers are doing to correct matters because they are FORCED to use AFCI breakers. Eaton knows they have a captive audience and as long they do they can make all the bad products they wish and still make money hand over fist.

So, the law makes man use AFCI to make him safe from fire. AFCI no worky like should so different brand has to be used in panel. This make man much less safe from fire than just using regular breakers.

Anyway, I thought I would post a solution to an AFCI problem. It seems the solution is to not use Eaton products.
 
When someone has trouble with afci they should replace the breaker with a different generation afci not just replace it with one over the counter-- I bet 90% of the time that is not the issue.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
When someone has trouble with afci they should replace the breaker with a different generation afci not just replace it with one over the counter-- I bet 90% of the time that is not the issue.
Click to expand...

I agree, but that is not the case with ham radio operators. The ARRL is leaning on Eaton to fix their product. If you notice, Eaton even sells specially rated breakers that have HAM printed right on them.

For some reason, Eaton can't figure out how to make an RFI immune AFCI like (it seems) everyone else does. I am really surprised that the FCC hasn't stuck their nose into this yet. Something so 'critical' as to be required by law, should also be required by law to actually work properly.

Again, the purpose of this thread is to illustrate that there is a solution to Eaton AFCI breakers tripping.

Have you looked at YouTube about the subject? There are vids there of the breakers tripping from radio signals, some 400 feet from the panel.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
When someone has trouble with afci they should replace the breaker with a different generation afci not just replace it with one over the counter.
Click to expand...
I called Mr. Fello at Eaton, but basically he's given up. Nice guy, but as someone else mentioned on another board, Eaton probably just wants Ham's to 'go away'. He sent me replacements, even though my originals had the "ham" suffix. The replacements tripped equally.
Click to expand...
Marky,

Interesting story. I infer, from the ham's experience, that the Eaton Combination-type AFCI signal processing circuitry and program based mathematical algorithms are still not able to discriminate between benign and malevolent waveforms of all the "noise" on power and light wiring. I know that is a simplification, but, your story is a great real world example. It points to an error, or errors, in the initial theoretical signal processing assumptions that the circuitry and math are derived from. I.E., back to square one.
 
I can not recall ever seeing a building burn down solely because a different brand breaker was installed in a panel. I may even suggest there may be certain combinations that may be better then an OEM breaker in it's respective panel. The only thing that is a problem here is that they are not tested/listed to be used together, but doesn't automatically mean they will fail catastrophically. You can find an occasional load center that does list several manufacturers breakers as being acceptable to install - usually as part of a meter-loadcenter or pedestal type equipment Midwest products is one line that comes to mind that I have seen them list several breakers accptable as they don't make a breaker of their own, though I think they are a sub company to GE and anything factory installed is usually GE. Seems I have seen multiple product lines marked as acceptable on Milbank equipment as well.
 
kwired said:
I can not recall ever seeing a building burn down solely because a different brand breaker was installed in a panel. I may even suggest there may be certain combinations that may be better then an OEM breaker in it's respective panel. The only thing that is a problem here is that they are not tested/listed to be used together, but doesn't automatically mean they will fail catastrophically. You can find an occasional load center that does list several manufacturers breakers as being acceptable to install - usually as part of a meter-loadcenter or pedestal type equipment Midwest products is one line that comes to mind that I have seen them list several breakers accptable as they don't make a breaker of their own, though I think they are a sub company to GE and anything factory installed is usually GE. Seems I have seen multiple product lines marked as acceptable on Milbank equipment as well.
Click to expand...

While I have also not seen buildings burn down, I have seen breakers that failed catastrophically. One such breaker actually fell apart in my hands and the remains stuck to the bus and started arcing. I kept the breakers and have pics around here as well. This was particularly scary because just below me in the basement was a 500 gallon fuel oil tank about 1/2 full and there was fuel oil from leaks all over the floor.
 
K8MHZ said:
While I have also not seen buildings burn down, I have seen breakers that failed catastrophically. One such breaker actually fell apart in my hands and the remains stuck to the bus and started arcing. I kept the breakers and have pics around here as well. This was particularly scary because just below me in the basement was a 500 gallon fuel oil tank about 1/2 full and there was fuel oil from leaks all over the floor.
Click to expand...
I have seen catastrophic failures of a breaker in a panel it was listed for many times - things happen:happyyes:
 
kwired said:
Your absolutely correct - lets not put in any breaker at all - then it can't fail;)
Click to expand...

I suggest a compromise, put in a standard CH breaker. They hardly ever trip. I saw a 15 amp breaker hold 117 amps and not trip. All the lights dimmed down when I turned the breaker on. I thought I had a bad connection, it turned out to be a hot and a neutral wire nutted together in an outside light about 40 feet from the breaker. We call CH breakers 'never trips'.
 
kwired said:
It is also immune to most other problems that often come up with AFCI's:happyyes:
Click to expand...

Yes. I did a house last yr 1 mile from Kaneohe Marine Corps base where there are prominent radio towers all over the place. The Afci's were giving me hell in that house, no matter how many times I replaced them, or meggered all the circuits to no avail. The owner found the solution for $5.45 per breaker at the local hardware and did his own repairs......
 
GFP plus a low magnetic trip can do just about everything an AFCI can. Further, glowing connections are a major cause of fire... so with that said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. :happyno:
 
AFCI Manufacturers have a tough job

AFCI Manufacturers have a tough job

Hi,
This is my first post. I'm very active in product safety engineering and work for a major appliance industry involved in several safety committees (UL - CSA - AHAM, etc). In regards to AFCI's nuisance tripping, I agree with the one fella's post of to use the most recent AFCI. It is a delicate balance of making sure the AFCI performs it's function when it's supposed to and yet not trip when there is no safety issue. From an engineers prospective there are 4 outcomes:
-Device does not trip when there is no safety issue - Good
-Device does trip when there truly is a safety issue - Good
-Device does not trip when there is a safety issue - Very Bad and known as a Beta Error
-Device trips when there is a safety issue (nuisance tripping) -Bad and known as an Alpha Error.

I've briefly looked at some of the algorithms with AFCI suppliers (looking at the "current signature" and making a determination if it's a dangerous arc). These algorithms are very complex, but they are constantly striving to improve them. If they don't improve, they will be out of business. Thus, I'm interested in your comments.

Obviously, I support AFCI's because they will improve over time. Are any of you old enough to remember all the problems when automotive first came out with electronic ignition? Man, I think every mechanic (me included at the time) wanted to tar and feather all engineers who were ever involved with the early development. Nowadays, you hardly ever hear of automotive ignition failures...
 
gjneumann said:
Hi,
This is my first post. I'm very active in product safety engineering and work for a major appliance industry involved in several safety committees (UL - CSA - AHAM, etc). In regards to AFCI's nuisance tripping, I agree with the one fella's post of to use the most recent AFCI. It is a delicate balance of making sure the AFCI performs it's function when it's supposed to and yet not trip when there is no safety issue. From an engineers prospective there are 4 outcomes:
-Device does not trip when there is no safety issue - Good
-Device does trip when there truly is a safety issue - Good
-Device does not trip when there is a safety issue - Very Bad and known as a Beta Error
-Device trips when there is a safety issue (nuisance tripping) -Bad and known as an Alpha Error.

I've briefly looked at some of the algorithms with AFCI suppliers (looking at the "current signature" and making a determination if it's a dangerous arc). These algorithms are very complex, but they are constantly striving to improve them. If they don't improve, they will be out of business. Thus, I'm interested in your comments.

Obviously, I support AFCI's because they will improve over time. Are any of you old enough to remember all the problems when automotive first came out with electronic ignition? Man, I think every mechanic (me included at the time) wanted to tar and feather all engineers who were ever involved with the early development. Nowadays, you hardly ever hear of automotive ignition failures...
Click to expand...
Thanks. I was a beta test sight, and still have them installed, for the original AFCI back in 1999 and personally knew some of the design engineers. Being that I was an application engineer I am well aware of what the goals were with the introduction of the AFCI and the agony of trying to address all of the little gremlins that reared their ugly heads because factory design tests that could not foresee these field application issues. We had AFCIs installed in various location and kept very detailed documentation should there have been a trip. If there was one we did send a factory rep to that location to evaluate the cause of trip.
I'm a firm believer of the produce but I am still waiting for the insurance industry and fire protective services to gather history and documentation to support the importance of the AFCI. Until that happens there will be complainers as well as naysayers.
 
gjneumann said:
Hi,
This is my first post. I'm very active in product safety engineering and work for a major appliance industry involved in several safety committees (UL - CSA - AHAM, etc). In regards to AFCI's nuisance tripping, I agree with the one fella's post of to use the most recent AFCI. It is a delicate balance of making sure the AFCI performs it's function when it's supposed to and yet not trip when there is no safety issue. From an engineers prospective there are 4 outcomes:
-Device does not trip when there is no safety issue - Good
-Device does trip when there truly is a safety issue - Good
-Device does not trip when there is a safety issue - Very Bad and known as a Beta Error
-Device trips when there is a safety issue (nuisance tripping) -Bad and known as an Alpha Error.

I've briefly looked at some of the algorithms with AFCI suppliers (looking at the "current signature" and making a determination if it's a dangerous arc). These algorithms are very complex, but they are constantly striving to improve them. If they don't improve, they will be out of business. Thus, I'm interested in your comments.

Obviously, I support AFCI's because they will improve over time. Are any of you old enough to remember all the problems when automotive first came out with electronic ignition? Man, I think every mechanic (me included at the time) wanted to tar and feather all engineers who were ever involved with the early development. Nowadays, you hardly ever hear of automotive ignition failures...
Click to expand...
Deleted
 
Doing a lot of troubleshooting and repairs this season I see the AFCI bringing wiring problems to light. Many of those issues could be detected with just a simple ground fault test. Taking that feature out will lessen the detection of wiring issues before they become more serious. Take for example a nail through a neutral and ground. A AFCI breaker without GF detection will only detect a problem down the road if ever of a issue when the conductors finally sizzle.

As far as the ham radio issue I hope they figure that one out soon.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top