Would an arc fault trip on this?

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mbrooke said:
Keyless lamp holder with an actual arc fault. Not from a loose connection but it appears some yellow water got inside of it. Would this lead to a fire? Or trip a regular AFCI?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vIwvEObVWI
Click to expand...

why would it? It’s just a water heater. I can’t tell if the EG is connected to the box. The GF portion of an AFCI, if used, would work in that case.
 
mbrooke said:
Keyless lamp holder with an actual arc fault. Not from a loose connection but it appears some yellow water got inside of it. Would this lead to a fire? Or trip a regular AFCI?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vIwvEObVWI
Click to expand...

What did you consider to be an arc fault? What I saw was heated liquid vaporizing into smoke or steam. It was said to be water, but if it was, it was real dirty water.
 
mbrooke said:
Keyless lamp holder with an actual arc fault. Not from a loose connection but it appears some yellow water got inside of it. Would this . . . trip a regular AFCI?
Click to expand...

Absent a yellow-water-keyless arc waveform and the specific AFCI manufacturer's arc discrimination algorithm knowledge made public, one can only speculate (or experiment.)

Maybe. Maybe not.
 
mbrooke said:
Keyless lamp holder with an actual arc fault. Not from a loose connection but it appears some yellow water got inside of it. Would this lead to a fire? Or trip a regular AFCI?
Click to expand...

I have taken keyless and other fixtures down where the wiring in the box was burned to a crisp and still no fire.

It would be nice if the breaker did trip but as Al says there is no way to know if it actually would. but the chance of a fire is pretty small.
 
I can't believe the guy thought about trying to save that keyless. BTW, nice wiring job.....I m not talking about the temp stuff either.
 
Some vaporizers use an open heating element that uses the water as the actual element. Salt has to be added to the water to make it work, but the salt doesn't evaporate out. That's basically what the keyless is operating as in the video, a steam vaporizer.

The above design is popular because the unit fails safe with the element open when all the water is boiled away.
 
mbrooke said:
Would it even have a waveform?
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If current is flowing why wouldn't it? Obviously didn't have any waveform that the AFCI rejected, or current level was too low and it wasn't supposed to respond in that particular situation.

Good, bad? IDK.

We had a steam vaporizer a long time ago that was like already mentioned, simply two electrodes with 120 volt connected to them, and current through the water boiled the water. We never had to add salt, most people probably don't need to enhance conductivity of the water as tap water has minerals in it that raise conductivity of the water. Distilled water in such a thing should not work though.
 
I don't think the guy in the video had arc fault breakers. He only said IF there was an AFCI it would have taken care of it.

Makes me want to try that. Guess I could "pee" in a keyless and try it!;)
 
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