Strange AFCI Connection

[Little Bill]

I saw a picture of a panel with AFCIs and some were tripping. The electrician's attempted fix was to run a jumper from the breaker to the neutral bar/bus. I'm assuming the panel was PON. I don't know if he thought the connection from the breaker to the plug-on bar was bad, or he was trying to bypass the electronics in the AFCI. I couldn't post the picture as it didn't have the correct extension.
To be more clear, picture a plug-on AFCI breaker, it would have no pigtail as the neutral connection is through the plug-on. The load neutral is connected to the breaker. The electrician put a jumper from the breaker to the neutral bus.
Thoughts as to what this would do?

 

[wwhitney]

I don't know if he thought the connection from the breaker to the plug-on bar was bad

What you described is a plausible work around for the above if the AFCI design does no differential current sensing and internally the breaker just has the plug-on neutral and load neutral terminals connected straight through.

Then presumably the load neutral conductor was just moved to the neutral bar, and the load neutral connection on the breaker was used for a jumper to the neutral bar to power the breaker's electronics.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[kwired]

If breaker has GFP function it will trip pretty much any time there is load on the circuit.

 

[Little Bill]

Looks like he just tapped into the load neutral with the jumper. He basically intercepted the load neutral just before the breaker. Cut it, added the jumper up to the neutral bus, leaving the connection to the breaker.

 

[kwired]

Which brand/series of AFCI's is this?

It has to be one with no integral GFP or it just won't really work at all. I'm not certain which ones don't have GFP. I know that neither QO or Homeline does at this time, but those are about the only ones I have used recently.

 

[Little Bill]

I believe it was a Siemens

 

[jaggedben]

In my experience most AFCIs don't have GFP. (Some do, but if you told me that you have a random AFCI behind your back and guess whether it has GFP I'd guess no.)

 

[jimport]

Here is the original post.

Siemens panel and afci breakers

I wanna tell a little story so that I can vent my frustration, and possibly learn a little something as well. So, we just built a new home and the service panel is Siemens! We have 200 amp service and because, as everyone knows all new construction must be afci compliant.... We took possession...

www.diychatroom.com

 

[kwired]

In my experience most AFCIs don't have GFP. (Some do, but if you told me that you have a random AFCI behind your back and guess whether it has GFP I'd guess no.)

Initially I don't think any of them were without GFP, it supposedly was only way they could meet listing requirements early on.

I think GE was first that found a way to meet listing requirements without any GFP, and AFAIK they never made any with GFP since then.

I haven't kept up with which ones came after but am presuming once they made such change all new ones no longer have GFP. I pretty much only install Square D, most the others I encounter are ones that someone else installed.