Kichler fixture tripping AFCI

[brantmacga]

This fixture has been a pain.

I wired this house for a friend recently. First problem was the LED lamp based would sometimes make contact with the lampholder sleeve and trip the GF in the breaker. I installed grommets around the lamp base to fix that.

He calls me the other day and said the light circuit was tripping. His wife told me then night before the fixture had been bumped, and what I found was the metal lampholder sleeves on some bases were making contact with the lampholder screw connection. I took all the sleeves off and taped around them.

Now I’m curious just how intensive the NTL listing process is. Before I taped them, you could bump the fixture and rattle the sleeves to make it trip.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Dennis Alwon]

Send the dang fixture back to the company

 

[mopowr steve]

I think if you check carefully, you can find those LED candelabra bulbs that already have a translucent heat shrink on that portion of the base that wants to make contact with the decorative cover.
Some bulb manufacturers have figured that one out.

 

[brantmacga]

Send the dang fixture back to the company

Prob should’ve done that initially.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mopowr steve]

It’s not the fixtures fault, it’s still designed as it always has been.
It’s the Joe Blow LED manufacturers that created a bulb with this big extended/increased size shell for the bulb that now makes contact with those sleeves.

 

[reast]

That's very strange, I never noticed that the LED bulbs almost all have a large collar around the top part of the screw shell that extends out quite a bit (it makes the diameter of the top part of the shell larger) and therefore more prone to contacting the metal of the fixture. The standard filament bulbs don't have this collar, so I suspect that the bulbs are the cause, although having a metallic fixture so close to the shell is not great.
Here is an option that is LED, but has no enlarged collar (it looks like a filament base but it's LED)
https://www.amazon.com/Albrillo-Candelabra-Equivalent-Chandelier-Non-Dimmable/dp/B06XY8LM1G
Maybe try these, or something like it.