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QO Plug-on Neutral CAFCI/GFCI Circuit Breakers

Merry Christmas

busman

Senior Member
Location
Northern Virginia
Occupation
Master Electrician / Electrical Engineer
Per the subject, is it just me, or are these impossible to find lately (either online or locally)? I'm finishing out my monster garage and need about 25 of these to get completed. I installed a couple of pigtail versions I had around, just to get a few circuits up and running.

Thanks for any info.

Mark
 

James L

Senior Member
Location
Kansas Cty, Mo, USA
Occupation
Electrician
eBay has them for half retail

This guy has (3) 10-packs of 15s...


He also has (4) 10-packs of 20s

 

Little Bill

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Tennessee NEC:2017
Occupation
Semi-Retired Electrician
Per the subject, is it just me, or are these impossible to find lately (either online or locally)? I'm finishing out my monster garage and need about 25 of these to get completed. I installed a couple of pigtail versions I had around, just to get a few circuits up and running.

Thanks for any info.

Mark
Wondering why you are putting AFCI in a garage?
 

busman

Senior Member
Location
Northern Virginia
Occupation
Master Electrician / Electrical Engineer
Still wouldn't require AFCI.
Thanks all for the help. Most of these circuits will require GFCI and given that GFCI or AFCI are about the same cost and knowing that they'll get there soon on "all 120V residential circuits", I decided to just install them now. Maybe keep the HI off my a$$ at sell time. You can be sure they'll get swapped if I have any nuisance tripping Code or No Code. I may also be crazy.

Mark
 

hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
Occupation
Owner/electrical contractor
In Atlanta, the smash and grab artists have garbage cans full of them! That’s why Home Depot started locking them up. They would empty the shelf’s into garbage cans, and walk out the door with them.
 

Little Bill

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Tennessee NEC:2017
Occupation
Semi-Retired Electrician
In Atlanta, the smash and grab artists have garbage cans full of them! That’s why Home Depot started locking them up. They would empty the shelf’s into garbage cans, and walk out the door with them.
Same here with wire. Except they were buying toilets. They would fill the box the toilet came in with wire. sometimes even set the toilet in the shelf and use the whole box to hold more wire.
 

retirede

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
You're almost guaranteed to have trips with woodworking tools. Especially anything like a chop saw, skill saw, drill, etc.

I had to put a QO hi-mag breaker on the circuit that runs my Milwaukee chop saw. I have a lot of big power tools and that saw was the only one that caused problems.
 

Little Bill

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Tennessee NEC:2017
Occupation
Semi-Retired Electrician
I had to put a QO hi-mag breaker on the circuit that runs my Milwaukee chop saw. I have a lot of big power tools and that saw was the only one that caused problems.

Several times when I had a service release on a new house (limited power to complete house build) I would get a call saying breakers keep tripping. 100% of the time, it was a trim carpenter using a miter/chop saw, or shop vac. I told them to plug into the garage circuit or bath, as those don't have AFCI.
 

busman

Senior Member
Location
Northern Virginia
Occupation
Master Electrician / Electrical Engineer
Several times when I had a service release on a new house (limited power to complete house build) I would get a call saying breakers keep tripping. 100% of the time, it was a trim carpenter using a miter/chop saw, or shop vac. I told them to plug into the garage circuit or bath, as those don't have AFCI.
I agree. Universal motors are usually the problem. You can see the sparks if you run them in the dark.

Mark
 

ActionDave

Chief Moderator
Staff member
Location
Durango, CO, 10 h 20 min from the winged horses.
Occupation
Licensed Electrician
I agree. Universal motors are usually the problem. You can see the sparks if you run them in the dark.

Mark
Incorrect. Universal motors and AFCIs get along just fine. It's the electronics in new power tools that cause the AFCI to nuisance trip.

AFCIs don't trip on arcs. They trip on a waveform the tiny brain in them thinks is an arc, and that turns out to be anything other than a legit arc. They are a fraud.
 

busman

Senior Member
Location
Northern Virginia
Occupation
Master Electrician / Electrical Engineer
Incorrect. Universal motors and AFCIs get along just fine. It's the electronics in new power tools that cause the AFCI to nuisance trip.

AFCIs don't trip on arcs. They trip on a waveform the tiny brain in them thinks is an arc, and that turns out to be anything other than a legit arc. They are a fraud.
Unless the arcs that are being artificially generated by this test setup are not representative of real world loose connection arcs, I believe there is some scientific substantiation that AFCI's can operate as designed. With that said, I'm not at all convinced that they are great; they probably miss a large number of arc types and declare things that are not arc to be such.


Mark
 

busman

Senior Member
Location
Northern Virginia
Occupation
Master Electrician / Electrical Engineer
For the rest, I took your always good advice to heart. I hooked up the 4 lighting circuits and the panel receptacle on the AFCI's that I got a bargain on and ordered 18 GFCI for all the rest of the receptacles.

Thanks for the thoughts,

Mark
 
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