SIEMENS AFCI - Class Action Law Suit

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mtnelect

mtnelect

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A proposed class action alleges a certain type of circuit breaker made by Siemens Industry is defective in that it is unable to distinguish between harmless and dangerous electrical arcs.
 

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  • AFCI - ‘Nuisance’ Tripping, Class Action .pdf
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tortuga

tortuga

Code Historian
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Oregon
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Electrical Design
Strange that Siemens seems to be one of the brands that does not nuisance trip?
Looks like the case has no movement in a year?
 
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letgomywago

Senior Member
Location
Washington state and Oregon coast
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residential electrician
It'd be interesting if someone could finance the case and the research the products are only marginally safer. I do believe that afci breakers can add some safety like tripping from unlisted plug in devices and the ones with gfpe detecting ground faults. There's also the benefit of them keeping power tools out of garages and if you can't have tools then less projects and therefor less oil soaked rags in a pile
 
ptonsparky

ptonsparky

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letgomywago said:
It'd be interesting if someone could finance the case and the research the products are only marginally safer. I do believe that afci breakers can add some safety like tripping from unlisted plug in devices and the ones with gfpe detecting ground faults. There's also the benefit of them keeping power tools out of garages and if you can't have tools then less projects and therefor less oil soaked rags in a pile
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Huh? How does that work? Most any decent newer power tool should work on AFCI. Oil soaked rags in a pile are not affected by power availability. It just makes the fire investigation harder because they can't blame "electrical".
 
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letgomywago

Senior Member
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Washington state and Oregon coast
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residential electrician
ptonsparky said:
Huh? How does that work? Most any decent newer power tool should work on AFCI. Oil soaked rags in a pile are not affected by power availability. It just makes the fire investigation harder because they can't blame "electrical".
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New out of box Bosh and dewalt miter saws trip the afcis. Not just siemens but all of them. The oil rags are a joke because no power tools means no projects. Just like condos not letting you work on a motorcycle inside your private garage.
 
don_resqcapt19

don_resqcapt19

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ptonsparky said:
Huh? How does that work? Most any decent newer power tool should work on AFCI. Oil soaked rags in a pile are not affected by power availability. It just makes the fire investigation harder because they can't blame "electrical".
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Why would you expect that? The appliance and tool manufacturers have no idea of how to design their equipment to prevent false trips because each of the AFCI manufacturers have their own proprietary algorithms that determine what their AFCI devices see as a harmful arcing fault. Until those algorithms are made freely available to the tool, appliance and other equipment manufacturers this problem will continue to exist.
 
ptonsparky

ptonsparky

Tom
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NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
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don_resqcapt19 said:
Why would you expect that? The appliance and tool manufacturers have no idea of how to design their equipment to prevent false trips because each of the AFCI manufacturers have their own proprietary algorithms that determine what their AFCI devices see as a harmful arcing fault. Until those algorithms are made freely available to the tool, appliance and other equipment manufacturers this problem will continue to exist.
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Why? Because personal experience has shown newer stuff doesn't trip mine.

Disclaimer: my AFCIs are 14 years old and maybe I should go press the test button.

I had a dual function on the shop workbench that never tripped either.
 
don_resqcapt19

don_resqcapt19

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ptonsparky said:
Why? Because personal experience has shown newer stuff doesn't trip mine.

Disclaimer: my AFCIs are 14 years old and maybe I should go press the test button.

I had a dual function on the shop workbench that never tripped either.
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But plenty of others have brand new out of the box equipment that trips the devices
The AFCI manufactures are trying to tell us that they know every normal arc signature of every piece of equipment that has been produced in teh past and that will be produced within the life of the AFCI...not even remotely possible.
 
ActionDave

ActionDave

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ptonsparky said:
Why? Because personal experience has shown newer stuff doesn't trip mine.

Disclaimer: my AFCIs are 14 years old and maybe I should go press the test button.
Click to expand...
The old branch circuit, feeder ones did not nuisance trip near as bad as the combination series, parallel one do.
I had a dual function on the shop workbench that never tripped either.
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If you had a fancy television, late model expensive refrigerator, or a power tool that had soft start technology it would have.
 
ptonsparky

ptonsparky

Tom
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
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EC - retired
letgomywago said:
So you got combination afci durring their first production run and before any local codes had gone to 08?
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The combination were supposed to start being used in Jan, IIRC. My house was set after that. I made them come out and replace with the newer ones.
Wardcraft. Custom built, in factory, stick framed. Not a mobile or the typical mfg home with cheap donkey poop everywhere.
 
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