Siemens AFCI/GFCI Help needed

[Stevenfyeager]

The parallel trip current threshold is to allow the AFCI to trip instantly at a current which has been moved into the thermal zone in the US to prevent nuisance trips but is in the magnetic zone in comparable European breakers.
The arc signature recognition is not enabled at lower currents because may low current devices generate such signatures in normal operation.
The series arc signature recognition is made much tighter so that it can operate without too much false tripping at low load currents.
But there are problems with a low current series arc signature from one circuit being conducted into another circuit that is above the current threshold. That will nuisance trip a breaker that is not even connected to the offending device.

Just another annoying bit of AFCI lore and history.

I had a new Seimens AFCI breaker constantly trip (new wiring also) A bedroom with an expensive remote ceiling fan with lots of bells and whistles and bedroom LED recessed lights. Tried everything, replacing CB, etc.... Nothing worked. Another electrician in Louisville had the same problem, but I don't know what brand breaker. All new wiring... Finally, after almost the one year warranty ran out, they researched on line and found the lady's brand new Samsung refrig. electronics was not compatible with that brand AFCI. The lady bought a different ref, solved.

 

[peter d]

I had a new Seimens AFCI breaker constantly trip (new wiring also) A bedroom with an expensive remote ceiling fan with lots of bells and whistles and bedroom LED recessed lights. Tried everything, replacing CB, etc.... Nothing worked. Another electrician in Louisville had the same problem, but I don't know what brand breaker. All new wiring... Finally, after almost the one year warranty ran out, they researched on line and found the lady's brand new Samsung refrig. electronics was not compatible with that brand AFCI. The lady bought a different ref, solved.

That's truly shameful, I would be furious if my $1000 refrigerator was not compatible with a $35 breaker.

 

[GoldDigger]

That's truly shameful, I would be furious if my $1000 refrigerator was not compatible with a $35 breaker.

That sort of compatibility sounds a lot like the story on "nosmoke.com".
If people are interested in that story I can post it in Campfire.

mobile

 

[kwired]

That's truly shameful, I would be furious if my $1000 refrigerator was not compatible with a $35 breaker.

Definitely, if they want to make something that helps prevent fires, I am all for it, but if it don't work don't force us to use it, or to design around it's problems.

I presume this refrigerator wasn't even on the circuit being protected. You could very well have similar issue if a neighbor on the same source had that same refrigerator and be even more frustrated with trying to find out why your device keeps tripping

 

[mopowr steve]

Had a new condo, owner moves in and goes to stock her GE refrig and arc fault tripped when she opened door.
Reported it to that arc fault site, and Siemens engineer calls back and said that they were aware of that models led lighting being the cause. Told the appliance guy about it and he brought out a different frig and issue gone.

 

[peter d]

If I were Whirpool or Electrolux, I would be suing the AFCI manufacturers. GE can't sue itself, but they sold off the appliance division anyway.

 

[journeyman0217]

what is in the arc fault breaker itself that detects the arc? is it electronic? how are these electronics in these fridges and led's fooling the breakers?

 

[journeyman0217]

just to add something, I was at a customers house that said half the receptacles in their bedroom didn't work. I found a receptacle next to their bed that was completely melted. the cord they had plugged into the receptacle was actually stuck in it because the receptacle had melted around it. I found many poor connections in this house and associate this problem with a poor backstabbed connection to the receptacle. The circuit was protected by an arc fault breaker. the breaker had never tripped! is this because there was no real arc being put out and just a high resistive load do to the poor connection?

 

[GoldDigger]

just to add something, I was at a customers house that said half the receptacles in their bedroom didn't work. I found a receptacle next to their bed that was completely melted. the cord they had plugged into the receptacle was actually stuck in it because the receptacle had melted around it. I found many poor connections in this house and associate this problem with a poor backstabbed connection to the receptacle. The circuit was protected by an arc fault breaker. the breaker had never tripped! is this because there was no real arc being put out and just a high resistive load do to the poor connection?

That is often what happens.
The phenomenon of a stable resistive connection which generates enough heat to start a fire is called a glowing connection.
It is acknowledged by even the most ardent AFCI supporters that they cannot detect glowing connections.
There is some uncertainty about how glowing connections come about and whether, and how often part of that process involves an arc that an AFCI might theoretically be able to detect.

 

[mopowr steve]

what is in the arc fault breaker itself that detects the arc? is it electronic? how are these electronics in these fridges and led's fooling the breakers?

Yes it is electronic, a small microprocessor is programmed to sense the current signatures running through the breaker.

Long story short,

At above 5amps the series fault detection compares spuratic spikes in current which are known to occur durring arcing events in comparison to programmed arcing signatures. When this condition exists it trips.
The parallel detection of the breaker acts on erratic spikes of 75amps on the line&neutral, since both of these lines are being monitored anyhow by the same CT's sending signals to processor they are also used for ground fault monitoring in some brands.

Now the rub, some products out there durring normal operation mimic some of the same conditions the breaker is looking for. Hence nuisance tripping. I've been told by Siemens engineer that the processor is reprogrammed every so often to dismiss the effects of some appliances, as they become known. If it's been found that there is no fault of the appliance.

By the same token there really are new appliances with faults at times. So we really never know what's going on, unless we all had extensive training in occiliscopes and testing procedures which is probably not up everybody's alley.

Go to AFCIsafety.org to report issues your having with them. Have make/model numbers of appliances and date codes of breakers that are associated with the circuit in question.
I've done this a number of times, and was also told by Siemens engineer that when they get a response from the site, they go out purchase the product and take back to lab and do testing and contact engineers of other manufacturers to come up with solutions to these problems.

 

[kwired]

just to add something, I was at a customers house that said half the receptacles in their bedroom didn't work. I found a receptacle next to their bed that was completely melted. the cord they had plugged into the receptacle was actually stuck in it because the receptacle had melted around it. I found many poor connections in this house and associate this problem with a poor backstabbed connection to the receptacle. The circuit was protected by an arc fault breaker. the breaker had never tripped! is this because there was no real arc being put out and just a high resistive load do to the poor connection?

Glowing connections is arguably a big cause of fires, yet AFCI isn't very successful at detecting them, may even be bigger cause of fires then what AFCI does detect, which is one of the biggest issues opponents of using AFCI bring up after nuisance tripping issues.

Now the rub, some products out there durring normal operation mimic some of the same conditions the breaker is looking for. Hence nuisance tripping. I've been told by Siemens engineer that the processor is reprogrammed every so often to dismiss the effects of some appliances, as they become known. If it's been found that there is no fault of the appliance.

Also a big issue with AFCI opponents - why do we need to spend more time/money on something that has nothing wrong with it yet it triggers a signature the AFCI doesn't think is safe, just because the AFCI manufacturers haven't found a way to deal with the problem?

It is a little like buying a smart car - that determines it doesn't like the current driving conditions so it just shuts down on you to protect you from harm - just in case.

 

[journeyman0217]

interesting stuff...thanks!

 

[al hildenbrand]

what is in the arc fault breaker itself that detects the arc? is it electronic? how are these electronics in these fridges and led's fooling the breakers?

Mopowr Steve's explanation is great.

In addition, I like to describe the Combination Type AFCI Breaker as a real time signal processor that is continuously monitoring the current and voltage waveforms at it, and manipulating the waveforms to extract many different values that are summed to a go / no-go electrical trigger for the breaker mechanical mechanism.

The result of this is there are, essentially, an infinite number of arc signature states that will trigger the breaker, and, an infinite number of arc signatures that are benign and should NOT trigger the breaker, and there is a grey zone with a whole lot of arc signatures that could go either way.

Each of the four AFCI breaker manufacturers has their own proprietary solution to the Grand Idea of AFCI, and the behavior and methodology of their solution is locked down behind a stone wall of silence. . . 17 YEARS of silence. It truly is amazing. Many of us have tried very hard to learn, with very limited gains.

If you want to read more detail, it's a heavy read, but helpful, there is a 9 year old document that Siemens presented at an IEEE Holm Conference that points to how the initial Combination Type AFCI "discriminates". . . It is written by Carl Restrepo, a Siemens electrical engineer.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e2e6/afe4607359ed63726cf8c06809748f342baf.pdf

 

[mopowr steve]

Glowing connections is arguably a big cause of fires, yet AFCI isn't very successful at detecting them, may even be bigger cause of fires then what AFCI does detect, which is one of the biggest issues opponents of using AFCI bring up after nuisance tripping issues.


Also a big issue with AFCI opponents - why do we need to spend more time/money on something that has nothing wrong with it yet it triggers a signature the AFCI doesn't think is safe, just because the AFCI manufacturers haven't found a way to deal with the problem?

It is a little like buying a smart car - that determines it doesn't like the current driving conditions so it just shuts down on you to protect you from harm - just in case.

I'm with you 100%
I am only left to deal with this BS and so far this is all I know. Show me a sniffer tool that actually locates an issue would be a miniscule start in the right direction if they can't get rid of
afci.

I've even done one of my contractors own homes and he gets to see this first hand what I'm required to install and what his customers deal with from time to time. Last week he said they tried to microwave popcorn and had to go to the basement 3 times to reset the damn thing. I would not expect elderly or disabled to have to go thru this s..t

Who knows what what we're looking for. It could be something on another circuit that the microwave breaker is also seeing once it gets the load applied from the micro.

Not to mention the random tripping that will occur as the electrical system ages.

When I began this trade I was disillusioned in that I thought when products were made (at least then)
that a product was supposed to be able to contain any failure within and not subject surroundings to dangerous outcomes and that was part of obtaining a UL listing. So let the miniscule failures occur as they always have just deal with it in a straight forward solution instead of some back door policy.

 

[kwired]

I'm with you 100%
I am only left to deal with this BS and so far this is all I know. Show me a sniffer tool that actually locates an issue would be a miniscule start in the right direction if they can't get rid of
afci.
.

The sniffer tools are available, but outside of ground faults we don't know what to look for, it is easier to try to get top national security information then to find out what arc signatures a particular AFCI unit is looking for.

 

[mopowr steve]

The sniffer tools are available, but outside of ground faults we don't know what to look for, it is easier to try to get top national security information then to find out what arc signatures a particular AFCI unit is looking for.

I have the Intelliarc diagnostic tool but would not concider it a sniffer. It just merely relays what the breaker is "seeing" and sends that info to a handheld display unit. While we're farting around turning things off and on until something gives a reading of high probability of triggering the afci. Not only that, but it shows things unrelated to the circuit you think you're testing.

Im talking about a tool that picks up on the EMF/EMI given off at the arcing location exactly.
Maybe AM radio is the way to go?

 

[kwired]

I have the Intelliarc diagnostic tool but would not concider it a sniffer. It just merely relays what the breaker is "seeing" and sends that info to a handheld display unit. While we're farting around turning things off and on until something gives a reading of high probability of triggering the afci. Not only that, but it shows things unrelated to the circuit you think you're testing.

Im talking about a tool that picks up on the EMF/EMI given off at the arcing location exactly.
Maybe AM radio is the way to go?

Sniffer tool could be an oscilloscope, but even if you can see the current wave do you know what signatures cause a trip? That information seems highly guarded by the AFCI manufacturers, and doesn't appear to be the same from one manufacturer to another either.