Entire panel of breakers tripping off.

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Sierrasparky said:
Scolaz

Something is very fishy here. I use Murray, Siemens and Homeline all the time. I have never seen a Siemens trip to the off position in my life. I have installed many a siemens AFCI in older homes and have had some calls. Everytime is see a trip the handle in in the middle never the off. Every time I diagnose the AFCI trips there has been everything from nails in the wires, Nuetral to ground issues, and Loose connections from Poor workmanship.

If not I think someone is playing games with you.

Regular breakers tripping to the off position - no load no connections. Yea right.

Sorry for the sarcasm it really seems odd.
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I do not understand the off position thing either. The only breakers I know of that trip to the off position are Cutler Hammer brown handle breakers. How could they go all the way to the off position without being pushed there? Not to belabor the point but you were there and witnessed breakers go from completely on to completely off before your very eyes?
 
Sierrasparky said:
Scolaz

Something is very fishy here. I use Murray, Siemens and Homeline all the time. I have never seen a Siemens trip to the off position in my life. I have installed many a siemens AFCI in older homes and have had some calls. Everytime is see a trip the handle in in the middle never the off. Every time I diagnose the AFCI trips there has been everything from nails in the wires, Nuetral to ground issues, and Loose connections from Poor workmanship.

If not I think someone is playing games with you.

Regular breakers tripping to the off position - no load no connections. Yea right.

Sorry for the sarcasm it really seems odd.
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I would not have posted the question if I had not seen it with my own eyes (and if someone told me a that breaker shut off with no wires attached I would not believe it either, but I can tell you it happened)! I have talked every professional peer that I have worked with over the years, the Siemens rep, the supply house and others on one has an idea. I have had the same experience with troubleshooting AF breakers tripping. I have had many time it be something that the homeowner plugged into the system. One guy had a pump in his fish tank that was tripping the AF breaker. All the AF problems that have come up since we purchased the Siemens diagnostic test have been found very quickly. In this house the tester does not show anything definitive.

Nials, screws, damaged wires would show up in one or two circuit not the entire panel. This would be pretty easy to find. But when every breaker goes off I am lost as to what could cause it.
 
FWIW, if the AFCI breakers have GF protection too, you can verify the breakers contain at least some electronics by using a resistor to create a 30ma + ground fault o the output.
I would not try shorting the breaker, in case it is a really lame counterfeit. Not that I would do that anyway, of course.
 
GerryB said:
I do not understand the off position thing either. The only breakers I know of that trip to the off position are Cutler Hammer brown handle breakers. How could they go all the way to the off position without being pushed there? Not to belabor the point but you were there and witnessed breakers go from completely on to completely off before your very eyes?
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Yes we saw it but only once. It happened right after we meggered the SER feeder cable and it checked out fine, then landed the wires and turned everything back on. Shortly after that most every breaker shut off.
 
GoldDigger said:
FWIW, if the AFCI breakers have GF protection too, you can verify the breakers contain at least some electronics by using a resistor to create a 30ma + ground fault o the output.
I would not try shorting the breaker, in case it is a really lame counterfeit. Not that I would do that anyway, of course.
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Not counterfeit, unless Siemens is making and selling them themselves. I doubt it! I had posted originally that we had taken out all the AF breakers and installed the newest AF breaker from Siemens which has been upgraded to eliminate some of the nuisance tripping.
 
If you've personally witnessed regular breakers tripping with no conductors connected to the load side, this is not an electrical problem.

I wouldn't even bother megging things and checking neutrals, because even the worst neutral connection in the world still isn't gonna cause a breaker to conduct short-circuit current through the air.

Seriously, physically slap the panel, I wasn't joking. If these shock trip that easily, you will be able to reproduce it. I would absolutely take one out and drill the rivets, just to investigate the counterfeit possibility.
 
big john said:
If you've personally witnessed regular breakers tripping with no conductors connected to the load side, this is not an electrical problem.

I wouldn't even bother megging things and checking neutrals, because even the worst neutral connection in the world still isn't gonna cause a breaker to conduct short-circuit current through the air.

Seriously, physically slap the panel, I wasn't joking. If these shock trip that easily, you will be able to reproduce it. I would absolutely take one out and drill the rivets, just to investigate the counterfeit possibility.
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Do you think the first breaker that trips causes a cascading effect ?
 
big john said:
If you've personally witnessed regular breakers tripping with no conductors connected to the load side, this is not an electrical problem.

I wouldn't even bother megging things and checking neutrals, because even the worst neutral connection in the world still isn't gonna cause a breaker to conduct short-circuit current through the air.

Seriously, physically slap the panel, I wasn't joking. If these shock trip that easily, you will be able to reproduce it. I would absolutely take one out and drill the rivets, just to investigate the counterfeit possibility.
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One breaker had no wires on it. All the other breakers do have wires on them. I have tried to slam the door between the house and the garage as it is only 3 ft away from the panel. I will try some other things next week and see what happens. As far as counterfeit, no way these all came straight from Siemens.
 
SG-1 said:
Do you think the first breaker that trips causes a cascading effect ?
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Based on the information I've read, that's my best guess right now. I have seen large-frame breakers shock trip when they get worn out or something is drastically out of calibration. I have never heard of a shock-tripping cascade, and for that to take place, I would have to assume you have an entire panel of defective breakers.

But if that's what is happening, you should absolutely be able to initiate that by hand. Tap the handles of the breakers with a rubber tool handle using just enough force to cause them to turn off, I imagine that'd be similar to any force present when one is tripping.
 
I'd like to give some attention to the breaker with no wire.

If you set up a test in a lab and wanted to make a breaker go from on to OFF with no wire connected, how would you go about it? Or could you go about it?


If you set up a test in a lab and wanted to make a breaker go from on to TRIP with no wire connected, how would you go about it? Or could you go about it?
 
When flipping the breakers to off by hand, does the force required to overcenter the handle seem a lot less than normal, indicating a problem with the spring or pawl in the mechanism?
 
RFI and AFCI

RFI and AFCI

Mentioned briefly by another poster, I would seriously consider RFI as a cause to your problem.

Consider: a local transmitter for AM, FM, microwave, cellular, in-home 3G/4G, high-powered WiFi, in-home cellular repeater, nearby ham radio operator, Tesla coil enthusiast, etc.

Re: http://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-helps...ve-arc-fault-circuit-interrupter-rfi-problems

This could be easily verified with a field strength meter...or a simple app on an iPad or some such.

Your local ARRL chapter or ham radio enthusiast would probably love to help you troubleshoot your problem!
 
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cuba_pete said:
Mentioned briefly by another poster, I would seriously consider RFI as a cause to your problem.

Re: http://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-helps...ve-arc-fault-circuit-interrupter-rfi-problems

This could be easily verified with a field strength meter...or a simple app on an iPad or some such.

Your local ARRL chapter or ham radio enthusiast would probably love to help you troubleshoot your problem!
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That would explain the AFCI, even if unwired, tripping, but not the normal breakers in the same panel.
 
agree

agree

GoldDigger said:
That would explain the AFCI, even if unwired, tripping, but not the normal breakers in the same panel.
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Agreed...it's a long shot to start with.

I would say that if a field is inducing enough energy to cause the AFCI's to trip, then the panel is receiving energy which may then be enough to feed into the regular circuits either through wiring or via the AFCI branches.

I don't know how the panel is configured, so conjecture is all I can provide.

This would take a bit of field work to prove.
 
cuba_pete said:
Agreed...it's a long shot to start with.

I would say that if a field is inducing enough energy to cause the AFCI's to trip, then the panel is receiving energy which may then be enough to feed into the regular circuits either through wiring or via the AFCI branches.

I don't know how the panel is configured, so conjecture is all I can provide.

This would take a bit of field work to prove.
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Interesting article but again according to the OP these breakers are in the completely off position, not a center trip position.
 
The OP stated that he did in fact find a so called "bad wire" . This is a new home and there is a bad wire?

I would have checked to see where that bad wire is and what caused it. Because if it is the OP's the owner may be setting you up for bad wiring in the entire home. and then the other owners will gang up too.

You need to prove that is not your fault.
 
mgookin said:
I'd like to give some attention to the breaker with no wire.

If you set up a test in a lab and wanted to make a breaker go from on to OFF with no wire connected, how would you go about it? Or could you go about it?


If you set up a test in a lab and wanted to make a breaker go from on to TRIP with no wire connected, how would you go about it? Or could you go about it?
Click to expand...

The only way (aside from a short or overload) that I've ever seen to force a breaker into the center "trip" position is to put it in the "on" position, hold it in your hand and slap it against the floor or a sturdy table. Not a very scientific method, I know, but it works ;)
 
gooling around i found a case where water condensation was accumulating inside boxes due to poor insulating methods in a humid area where AC is used heavily. this was causing circuits to trip off.
 
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