[Virtual Geezer]

I am aware of issues where certain breakers have been tripped but I do not know all the details. I also know that Eaton, the manufacturer of the boxes and breakers, sent two guys from Pittsburgh here to run some tests. They spent over 4 hours running tests and measurements on a home south of 466a. It is going to take some time for the results to be known.

This cause here may or may not be the cause in your situation so a fix on one may not correct your issue.

VG

[Topspinmo]

"I've had two new homes in The Villages and never had a breaker tripping problem, so disagree that it is normal in new homes"

evidently your homes didn't have the new code breakers.

Fault breakers detect surges or shorts to ground to prevent you from getting shocked. These new sensitive breakers detect surges that put on there circuits. Vacuum sweepers, hair dryers, toasters, Micowaves, ect. pull alot of amps. The surge of amps when the motor fires up or several lights coming on all at once may pull enough amps to trip the new sensitive breakers.... Probably another fine American product made in China, india, Mx, or Bangladesh....

[2 Oldcrabs]

The "ARC" breakers are designed to trip with any arcing. If you remember the old drill motors or saws you could see a little "blue arc" where the the brushes meet the armature. Some vacuum's do the same thing. This will cause the ARC beakers to trip. Another problem is "Back Stabbing" of outlets on 15 amp circuits ( It is legal to do). They just push the wires in the back of outlets instead of wrapping the connection around the screws. I tested voltatage at a 15A outlet to be 123volts, plug an Iron in and the voltage dropped to 114 volts. That is more than a 5%. Plug the Iron in a 20amp circuit and the the voltage drop is 2 volts. Some the the voltage drop on 15 amp circuit is the smaller wire allowed. IMHO "Back Stabbing" of outlets should be outlawed. It is a terrible connection and can lead to arcing in the outlet. I will be changing all of them in my home in the near future. One thing you can do is buy a $4 single surge suppressor from Home Depot and move it around where you want to plug a motor into.

[2 Oldcrabs]

Originally Posted by shcisamax

We are so far beyond that Gracie. TV is well aware. Apparently there are several issues on of which is if there is any ham radio within x amount of distance, houses have problems. The company that makes the breakers is trying to figure out what to do - they actually flew down from Pittsburg a couple weeks ago but they haven't been able to come up with a solution. It is a mess but we have electric people at our houses two to six times a week. It just goes on and on and I am getting very tired of it. I was trying to determine how many other people are finding the same irritation.

I live in Sanibel also. I am very close to the Ham Radio. IMHO The grounding system they use in Florida is not good. I installed another ground rod at 12 homes around the Ham Radio ( 2 seperate rods at the Ham Radio home). As far as I know, no more problems. When I moved in 1 year ago, I installed 2 extra rods, and have never tripped a breaker. You may want to ask TV to install and extra rod at least 5' from the foundation.( Sould be 10' but that might put it neighbors yard). Also have them check all connection in the panel box, I found a couple of "loose" ones.

[shcisamax]

2 Oldcrabs: YOu clearly know something about electricity. Wow. Well, it was our house that the guys flew down from Eton came to along with another two. What is so annoying for us is the breaker that goes is affecting the computer.
Actually, my neighbor who has suffered this tripping problem told me his computer totally died yesterday. He is an engineer by profession so has a little more pertinent knowledge than I and he is wondering if this constant tripping was involved as he has had no issues with it prior and it is relatively new. He is off to purchase a new one and get all his tax info that was almost complete taken off the old one. I think he is unhappy
Well, I am glad I posed the question because I now know that this is a widespread issue not just localized and that TV will just continue to go through the motions of working on it but they already know there really isn't an answer. Their hands are tied. I now understand why they say that Eton is working on it but it isn't really going to be fixed. It is inherent in the design and I now understand why certain things, especially ham radios with their frequency arcs will set them off at an alarming rate.

And as someone suggested yesterday, this was some idea of some greedy dumb guy looking to jack up the price for personal profit and got DC to pass regulation saying all the world must use these to make our lives safer so they could 10 fold the price...HAHAH. There we go Gracie.. you were right...it's a conspiracy !!!

So I gather from this thread, we are on our own on this issue so we should replace them all with the old type after the warranty period is up? which TV cannot suggest and then if we sell the house, put in the original ones? Is that what you mean 2 OldCrabs?

[shcisamax]

2 OldCrabs: I have no idea what you are talking about but you definitely have me convinced you know what you are talking about. I will ask TV to do that with installing rods. Thank you for taking the time to write this for those of us who have had this problem and those that will be experiencing it in the future. I wish you a really really really wonderful day.

[shcisamax]

Originally Posted by raynan

We have one neighbor that has documented all calls to The Villages from the whole neighborhood, breaker manufacturer has been out, adapters were given in some instances, some breakers replaced. Explanation is that new breakers are very sensitive. No one is satisfied. In our house it is our master bath. Cannot use hair dryer while shower light and fan are on. Fan in shower was replaced. Still happens. I adjusted usage. Vacuum cannot be used in all plugs, just some.

By any chance do you have a ham radio operator in your area? If you do not know, can you ask Galaxy or Pike or...who do you use anyway? if there is a ham radio in your area. Thanks.

[buzzy]

Initially, the AFCI in the master bath was tripping intermittently. The Warantee Dept. sent an electrician. He said that AFCIs were too sensitive for the cheap arcing motors in the bathroom exhaust fans. I urged him to change out the one that was tripping, although he said that it would not make any difference. He had to put in an exact replacement. That was about a year ago, and the replacement has not tripped. So, maybe there are manufacturing tolerances from piece to piece.

[getdul981]

Someone mentioned switching to a different brand of breaker. That can't be done since each manufacturer of breaker panels design them so you can only use their brand of breaker. When we purchased our home in Pennecamp, we had the problem of the vacuum tripping the Arc Fault breakers. I called Warranty Dept and they had the electrician bring me one of the little plug adapters to use on the vacuum and we have never had a problem since. It's a PITA to keep up with that little adapter, but it solves the problem.

[Virtual Geezer]

Some more information.

There are two types of breakers that are now being used by code. One is called a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters - GFCI. GFCI circuit-breakers operate by sensing unbalanced currents in the hot and neutral conductors of an ac circuit. An imbalance indicates the presence of a fault somewhere in the circuit, creating a shock hazard. The breaker then trips (opens) to remove the shock hazard.

An Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter - AFCI circuit breaker is similar in that it monitors current to watch for a fault condition. Instead of current imbalances, the AFCI detects patterns of current that indicate an arc – one of the leading causes of home fires. The AFCI is not supposed to trip because of “normal” arcs that occur when a switch is opened or a plug is removed.

Under current codes, GFCI protection is required for all basement outlets, outdoor outlets, and for outlets in kitchens and bathrooms. AFCI protection required for all circuits that supply bedrooms.

The problem is not only one here in TV but appearing across the country. Older homes nave no problems but that can't be said for new homes.

VG

[CraigC]

If you are having a problem with breakers tripping due to a radio transmitter in your proximity, Eaton is currently having electricians replace their current revision AFCI breaker with the prior revision breaker. I have been told that they are currently developing a breaker that will solve both the radio transmitter and motor problems.

I know of a total of 13 breakers, installed in the panels of 3 separate homes (all located within 100 feet of the radio) that were replaced by the prior version of the Eaton AFCI breaker, and the problem was eliminated in every case. I don't know, and seriously doubt that this corrected the problems caused by vacuum cleaners, paper shredders, exhaust fans, some older PC power supplies, flourescent lights, etc.

I believe that the current version of the Eaton AFCI began being installed in Villages homes in approximately Jan 2012. I'm sure that this may have varied by several months depending upon the electrical company. Both the old and new version of the AFCI breakers meet the electrical code. The newest version can be identified by a white "Test" button on the breaker in the panel. The prior version breaker had a yellowish "Test" button.

[Dick and Lin]

Had the problem with the 20 amp breakers. Seams that the new type are very sensitive to wires heating up. While hot the resistance in the wires drops and the breaker senses this and trips. The ceiling lights in the kitchen get very hot and heat up the adjoining wires.


The solution is to replace them with a previous generation. They replaced mine but I need to upgrade them once the new generation is fixed because of the new code.

[mulligan]

Or, replace the can lights with LED's....no heat, and the big boxes have plug in units to replace the big bulbs.

[BobnBev]

If it is, in fact, caused by RFI (radio frequency interference), then the FCC will step in and have a word with the "ham". There is a ham club in TV that might help, also. You might have to run extra ground rods from your main electrical box.

[KeepingItReal]

Originally Posted by buzzy

Initially, the AFCI in the master bath was tripping intermittently. The Warantee Dept. sent an electrician. He said that AFCIs were too sensitive for the cheap arcing motors in the bathroom exhaust fans. I urged him to change out the one that was tripping, although he said that it would not make any difference. He had to put in an exact replacement. That was about a year ago, and the replacement has not tripped. So, maybe there are manufacturing tolerances from piece to piece.

Since the neutral on a 120 circuit is ALSO tied to the ARC breaker in the panel box and not the ground/neutral bar of the box it is important the the ground conductor and the neutral not be touching in any of the outlets. On a regular breaker only the black (HOT) wire from the ROMEX is tied to the breaker. We had the tripping problem and found this to be the problem in one single outlet box. After this was corrected we haven't had a single tripped breaker. Usually the ground conductor and the neutral are tied to the same bar in the panel box and this was never a problem. The information in bold below describes this problem but it is an easy fix. The circuit would appear normal until you plugged basically anything into on of the outlets on the breaker and then it would trip the ARC breaker every time before we found this problem.


What About Nuisance Tripping of AFCI's

Nuisance tripping refers to a circuit breaker or an AFCI that trips off, turning off electrical power when there was no apparent reason to do so. Some sources assert that what appears to be "nuisance tripping" of AFCI's actually occurs due to wiring practices of some electricians more than for any other reason. These include

Reversed hot and neutral wires - reversed polarity - which is an unsafe condition
Shared neutral wiring on single pole circuit breaker circuits: this is already an existing problem with GFCI's on multiwire branch circuits.
Incorrect or accidental connections between the ground and neutral wire: this is also an unsafe condition which can permit live current to flow on a ground wire that should normally never carry current. We've personally seen this condition lead to an electric shock.

- See more at: AFCI guide to arc fault interrupters for home owners and home inspectors: how to buy, install, test, & inspect AFCIs