>* Is it worth looking into OFCI and/or PFCI?

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wyreman said:
Does anyone have experience w safe plug?
Customer asking my opinion... Guess it depends on the material cost

http://www.safeplug.com/fire_protection.php
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Did a quick search on the first set of buzzwords.

The company says it has patents on this technology but I couldn't find the patent numbers.

FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) sells a lot stuff to a lot of people (remember WMD?) and this pitch is certainly heavy on the Fear angle.

AFCIs have enough trouble with nuisance tripping because an arc is difficult or impossible to accurately characterize and I can't imagine this gadget doing any better.

Have them supply performance specs tested by an independent agency using accepted testing methods.

BTW, I asked Leviton by e-mail about false positives and false negatives with their AFCIs and the guy said they don't know anything about that.
I asked him, Who does? and there was no answer.
What does Leviton's QC dept. do all day?

My feeling is that these people are trolling for suckers. The FTC is probably not even watching for this kind of stuff.
 
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This product is aimed at the fact that there is no other technology that can directly detect an clear a "glowing connection" type of fault. In general an AFCI only detects this fault when the thermal energy from the high resistance connection melts enough insulation that the high resistance connection becomes a ground fault or a parallel arcing fault. One brand of AFCIs no longer has the ground fault detection circuit and it is very possible for a "glowing connection" to start a fire before there is enough insulation damage to create a parallel arcing fault.
 
G._S._Ohm said:
... My feeling is that these people are trolling for suckers. The FTC is probably not even watching for this kind of stuff.
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It is my opinion that the way this device works is much more likely to prevent a fire than the way an AFCI works.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
It is my opinion that the way this device works is much more likely to prevent a fire than the way an AFCI works.
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It may be.

For money spent on safety I'd think a CB gives you the most safety for each dollar spent, a GFCI next and an AFCI the least, but I doubt you can find reliable figures on the Web. There's too much intentional disinformation.
 
$299 for the kit with 2 duplex receptacles and some sort of monitoring gadget that monitors each connected receptacle and will send you an email!:?

Each additional receptacle is $70 bucks a pop!

Then you have to buy the "tags" for each appliance plug so the recep will accept it.

sounds like some awfully expensive "snake oil" to me.

Not going to do a lot for wiring elsewhere, such as switches, lights, etc. Certainly not in the walls or ceilings.

It may have it's usage for some applications, but certainly too costly for whole house application, IMO.
 
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