Domnic, welcome to the forum. Turn off the "Caps Lock", it's hard to read and considered shouting.
Some bath fans have caused issues with AFCI's for some, but I haven't had a problem with Ceiling fans or controls, myself. You might try swapping out the breaker for a newer one, or a different brand of control.
I have had problems with ITE AFCI's with the click type fan control. And if there is a surge supressor plug into one of the wall outlets It can make it worse.
I say before putting the blame on the AFCI breaker, check your wiring. It seems the AFCI is also very sensitive to incorrect wiring, especially inadvertent neutral to ground connections down stream. About 83% of the time we see that the wiring is creating this issue.
Notice of late how there are less complaints about the AFCI breakers? I think that the installers are starting to see why this is happening and are making sure it is not their wiring.
Also, should you have any situations, definitely notify the manufacturer, as they use this info to help in making improvements to their product - remember how GFCIs created the same "problems".
to properly hot check a house you have have an afci tester to check for neutral to ground faults,pricey huh or plug a light into all bedrooms same result 1/100 the price
A simple GFCI tester costs maybe $10 and tells you more than if its just hot.We never leave a job without doing that.Too many things today could fry with reversed polarity.GFCI trip only when there is a problem.
jim this is AFCI not GFCI,a simple receptacle to bulb adapter will test for ground to neutral faults.A plug tester says all is ok till a load is used.I have our guys one of those cheezy 2 prong bakelite adapters and a 7 watt edison based bulb to test ground neutral faults.Fluke says all ok plug tester says all is ok but a 89 cent item says whoawwwwww (Huston we have a problem)
Yes some fan controls will trip AFCI. Depends on Manuf and style. The breaker will trip when changeing speeds. Inductive load with caps in speed control creating ugly waveform. Try a slider type speed control.
There are several problems with motors and both AFCIs and GFCIs:
1. 120 volt motors have very thin and cheap insulation and have more than their fair share of insulation resistance and capacitance problems when new.
2.a. When you turn off a circuit, circuit inductance tends to force a phantom ground fault to flow throught the wiring capacitance to ground. Essentially, a high voltage fast rise time spike is looking for a place to go and one place is to ground through insulation capacitance.
2.b. When the starting circuit of a motor opens you also get a phantom ground fault. Split phase motors are bery bad in this regard.
3. With the way that some people work fast bare ground wires accidentally contacting neutral terminals is a distnct possibility. I used to think that taping wiring devices was bush league until I started installing GFCI receptacles. Now I tape wiring devices religiously unless it is a single device in a single gang nonmetallic box and I feel confident about how the wires are folded.