In alt.engineering.electrical TimR wrote: | On May 18, 3:44 pm, snipped-for-privacy@ipal.net wrote: |> In alt.engineering.electrical TimR wrote: |> | Probably this is a dumb question, but: |> | |> | I know NFPA now requires arc fault breakers for some circuits in the |> | US, but I went overseas before I actually saw one used. |> | |> | Will a light bulb arc trip an arc fault breaker? |>
|> Never say never, but generally very unlikely. I've seen one case of a |> bulb burnout trip a regular breaker. Presumably had that been an arc |> fault breaker, it would still be tripped at least for the overload part |> of the fault. An arc fault breaker generally includes GFCI protection |> as well as traditional magnetic and thermal overload protection. |>
|> -- |> |---------------------------------------/----------------------------------?| |> | Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below | |> | first name lower case at ipal.net / snipped-for-privacy@ipal.net | |> |------------------------------------/-------------------------------------?| | | I think you're right. From my web reading, it looks like an AFCI | should be protective against parallel arc faults but not likely to | trip on a series one, nor anything on an applicance cord, extension | cord, etc.
Presumably this type of protection is going to be required with no products yet available, or well field tested, to comply with. Hopefully when they do get series arc protection devices ready, they won't be fooled by motors, switching power supplies, and most lightbulb filament failures. There's a lot of waveform smarts that has to be squeezed into a tiny box that's going to get awfully hot with so many of them in there (and all those neutral pigtails clogging up the airflow), and has to last for 20 years or more.