In alt.engineering.electrical Gerald Newton wrote:
| On Oct 10, 4:28 pm, wrote:
| On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:00:35 -0000, Jerry
|
| wrote:
| CPSC, Schneider Electric North American Division Announce Recall of
| AFCIs
| WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
| announces the following recall in voluntary cooperation with the firms
| below. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately
| unless otherwise instructed.
|
| Name of product: Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters (AFCI)
|
| Units: About 700,000
|
| Manufacturer: Schneider Electric North American Division, of Palatine,
| Ill.
|
| This is 3 years old but I do wonder how many they have actually
| recovered. If it is 40% I would be "shocked".
|
| I was unfamilar with this recall until you brought it up in a previous
| post. Absolutely nothing was said about this at the NW IAEI Section
| meeting that I attended in Anchorage during the first week of
| September.
| With 700,000 units out there, it is a real problem as you explained in
| your post. I am creating my 2008 NEC Change course and have been on
| this AFCI thing for three days.
| It is interesting to note that at the Sq D site they explain that they
| are working with vacuum cleaner manufacturers to insure their products
| do not trip afci's.
| Can anyone imagine how many new products are going to have to go
| through this same evaluation. I suppose that we can expect increased
| costs for the evaluation of an electrical product to insure that it
| will not trip an AFCI. Is this going to part of the listing
| requirement for new products or does anyone have a handle on this at
| all? It looks like a bucket of worms to me. I just talked to an
| electrician in Hawaii that told me that some types of computer
| monitors are tripping afci's.

Maybe they should have considered all these appliances when they designed
these AFCIs. The arc waveform of a motor (I'm guessing typically these
are universal motors with brushes that arc) is not the same as the arc
waveform of a loose connection. But just how well the tiny bit of software
they can put inside a breaker can make the distinction within a cycle of
power is another issue.

How about a device that is specifically designed to filter out the arc
waveform that can be incorporated in new appliances? An LC low-pass?

--
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| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / |
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