Electrician Talk banner

Solve this AFCI Mystery

11K views 106 replies 25 participants last post by  Judoka 
#1 ·


And no, I'm not going to reveal the solution as soon as YOU respond.
 
#48 ·
Since the furnace room light switch being turned on is what first caused the AFCI to trip, that is what I investigated first. After finding and correcting a bad splice on the ungrounded feeding the switch there and the trip issue appeared solved, I didn't bother investigating any further. At least on that trip.

But I was back there again this morning.
 
#50 ·
The first thing I did today is swap the AFCI breaker with another in the panel. The circuits were not moved, just swapped two AFCIs. I wanted to see if the trip issue moved from crct 7 to crct 11. If so, that would have told me it's a breaker issue.

But as soon as I turned the swapped breaker back on, it tripped. Neither furnace room or bath lights were on.
 
#52 ·
OK, the receptacles are all back stabbed on that circuit. When you tied on to the existing receptacle, you either put your new wires on the screws or cut and pigtailed two of the four existing wires, leaving two still back stabbed. The act of jostling the receptacle around was enough to loosen the crappy back stabbed connection. The lighting is down stream of that outlet so when the light(s) was flipped on, it caused enough of an "arc" signature across the receptacle that the AFCI kicked it off.

Bottom line, sh!try back stabbed receptacle that hadn't been disturbed in 6 years until you were there.
 
#67 ·
So just curios.... Do you normally solve all these troubleshooting calls without being on site? Without tools?

So it only did it originally with the one light or did it originally do it wth both?
 
#68 ·
So just curios.... Do you normally solve all these troubleshooting calls without being on site? Without tools?
Where did I say I did that?

So it only did it originally with the one light or did it originally do it wth both?
Originally, it was just the furnace room light. A day later, the bath light caused it to trip.
 
#74 ·
Skipping ahead you had a neutral to ground fault in the GFI or bedroom outlet box.
Yep... you cheated.... but that was it. Ground wire had snugged up against the neutral in the back of the GFCI just enough to touch it.

Now.... why did turning the furnace room & bathroom lights cause it to trip?

BTW, why did you disable the you tube comments?! :mad: I wanted to tear you apart on your video tapping skills. :laughing:
:jester::jester:
1. I never claimed to be Steven Speilburg or George Lucas.
2. I don't tap videos. Tapping would be annoying to listen to.
3. No one uses tape any more.
 
#83 ·
furnace and your BR ckt are mwbc. furnace is a standard breaker. furnace has a control transformer wired hot to ground. neutral to ground current wasn't detected by afci until you fixed the bad neutral splice in furnace light box ?
 
#86 ·
How many hours did 480 make you guys loose here because he hasn't followed my advice to use the new Eaton afci breakers with no gfi circuitry.

(and perhaps no afci circuitry .............. ) ........



Who's your daddy?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Majewski
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top