Tiny house afci tripping

[Bluebird]

I need help on an issue I'm having at this time and nothing I've encountered before. This is a tiny home. I have an arc fault breaker that is tripping on the living room circuit. I haven't gotten down to run any specific testing yet, but wanted to see if anyone has had this similar situation before I spend time testing this out. I have managed to identify that when the occupant has a few items on such as the light, ceiling fan, lamp, and another LED light, and they either take a shower, run dishwasher, or washer the circuit trips. This is not every time. With this it makes me think it is when the gas tankless water heater is running. Doesn't do it every time someone uses hot water.None of these two are tied together and they are not interconnected in the electrical panel such as the neutrals mixed with the arc faults. Now let me confuse the situation a little by saying this has been happening in 4 of the tiny homes on site. This would be 4 out of 25 homes. The first one, I switched two of the breakers and it hasn't tripped at all again. On the second one, I switched the breakers as before and still having a tripping issue with the same circuit but on the different breaker. I haven't done anything yet with the other two. All the terminations in the panels are tight and all are new panels, breakers. Why would something be causing an arc fault to trip on another circuit that is not an arc fault and none of the wiring are connected except in the electrical panel?

 

[romex jockey]

Why would something be causing an arc fault to trip on another circuit that is not an arc fault and none of the wiring are connected except in the electrical panel?

igniters inherently go to ground

some appliances do as well

while intermittent, one can de-energize, take all N off panel N bar, ring each of them the G

~RJ~

 

[ptonsparky]

Do the breakers have on board diagnostics? If not, replace them with the latest model.

 

[Bluebird]

Do the breakers have on board diagnostics? If not, replace them with the latest model.

Can you explain a little further? I was wondering if these breakers are older type AFCI and would be too sensitive? But what confuses me is why is this jumping the ground or neutral bar back to the circuit breaker? An it's going back to the same circuit, not breaker?

 

[Bluebird]

igniters inherently go to ground

some appliances do as well

while intermittent, one can de-energize, take all N off panel N bar, ring each of them the G

~RJ~

When you say take all the N off panel and N bar, is this every single one and can you explain the ring each of them the G? Does this eliminate the problem and if so, how? The igniters inherently go to ground, but why is it jumping the ground or neutral bar back to the AFCI breakers? The LP tankless is not on an AFCI. Should it not stay with the ground or neutral bar when it goes to ground?

 

[hbiss]

The igniters inherently go to ground,

The igniters arc to the sheetmetal frame of (for instance) the range which is grounded. Could that be a problem? Who knows. Logic does not apply here beyond the normal troubleshooting. When that fails all you can do is blame it on the AFCI breaker, and other than replacing it there is no fix.

RJ is just saying to temporarily disconnect all neutral and ground conductors and test to see that there is no continuity between the white and ground of any circuit.



-Hal

 

[mopowr steve]

Your problem could be as described below.
The breaker you may be having issue with may be tripping because of electrical noise of some appliance on another circuit entirely, as the breaker that you are having issue with have certain parameters fulfilled. Such as for the parallel arcing sense circuit in the breaker set at <5amp . This condition probably is fulfilled with the items you say are on, so now the breaker is looking for an arcing condition it cannot differentiate what it seeks on the load or line side of the breaker. This condition probably does not exist for the series arcing sense circuit which is enabled at <70 amp.
I’ve had fan speed controls, plasma tv’s, vacuum cleaners, mixers all create this havoc.

 

[synchro]

Your problem could be as described below.
The breaker you may be having issue with may be tripping because of electrical noise of some appliance on another circuit entirely, as the breaker that you are having issue with have certain parameters fulfilled. Such as for the parallel arcing sense circuit in the breaker set at <5amp . This condition probably is fulfilled with the items you say are on, so now the breaker is looking for an arcing condition it cannot differentiate what it seeks on the load or line side of the breaker. This condition probably does not exist for the series arcing sense circuit which is enabled at <70 amp.
I’ve had fan speed controls, plasma tv’s, vacuum cleaners, mixers all create this havoc.

Agree except a series arc has the lower current threshold because the load impedance will limit the amount of current that can flow in such an arc. The current in a parallel arc would bypass the load and so it will not be limited by the load impedance.

 

[mopowr steve]

Agree except a series arc has the lower current threshold because the load impedance will limit the amount of current that can flow in such an arc. The current in a parallel arc would bypass the load and so it will not be limited by the load impedance.

Thank you for the correction.