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On Mon, 22 Feb 2016 21:54:14 -0500, "Texas Kingsnake"
wrote:

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On Mon, 22 Feb 2016 12:57:46 -0500, "Texas Kingsnake"
wrote:

Gentlemen and women:

I am not sure if you all remember, but I had the circuit breaker panel
with
the bad aluminum feeder cable that was shooting sparks.

We finally put the new panel in yesterday -- by *we* I mean *I* stood
around
while my electrician buddy did the work. We used 6 AFCI's in the
panel
for
the bedroom and kitchen circuits. When it came time to power the
panel
back
up, AFCI breaker number 6 refused to latch.

Here is the big question: How do you locate the arc fault that's
tripping
the breaker? In this old house the wire is buried deep in plaster
walls
and
routed from the basement up to the attic and back down again, FWIW,
it's
not
K&T, just old cloth-covered wiring from the 40's. My buddy had a word
for
it I had never heard before -- ragwire.

TKS

Cut out the feed that runs up the wall behind the plaster and replace
it with new cable Bypassing that old chunk of wire eliminates it as a
cause. If it still trips, remove EVERY device fastened to that
circuit. Pull every switch, receptacle,and fixture. If it still trips
rewire more untill you have it fixed. (you DID try disconnecting the
circuit from the AFCI in the panel to be sure it's not a defective
AFCI - right???)

I suggested swapping breakers but by that time my buddy wanted to get
home
and so we'll do it next time. Right now it's back on the old, plain
breaker
that doesn't trip while I shunt the current loads on that circuit over to
other, nearby outlets. I suppose if I move the loads to one of the new
AFCI
enabled circuits and that one trips, I've found the culprit.

I guess this is a good thing (revealing an arc fault that was unknown
until
now) but it sure seems like it is going to become a major pain in the
ass.

In the meantime, since we had to rearrange a number of breakers to
accommodate the old, short ragwire connections, I need to check each
circuit
one at a time to correctly ID it in the panel. We did the best we could
to
preserve the old numbering but it is time to double check things.

I guess now I will be marking outlets with a circuit number and a letter
to
indicate which one preceeds another. That isn't going to be easy nor
accomplished without disturbing an awful lot of existing wiring -- and
the
plaster covering it, too. Sheesh. Goes to show that no good deed goes
unpunished. Never expected to hit this sort of problem.

TKS

Get yerself a "fox and hound" tester. Turn off the breaker and plug
the fox into one of the outlets and set the hound loose - tracing the
wires from that outlet both ways - back to the panel and on to the end
if you didn't manage to find the last outlet in the string. If you
have metal lathe in your plaster it will make things more difficult,
but not necessarily impossible.

Got one today based on a suggestion from a web forum. So far all I know is
the wire from the troubled circuit leaves the box and heads right into a
bundle of other wires heading into the attic. I wasn't able to trace to
anything I didn't already know by inspection when the breaker's off. Crap!

More importantly, this is one of the old "ragwires" and I don't know how
much more connecting and disconnecting from the breaker it is going to
stand. I may have to pigtail a wire from each of the two different types of
breaker and switch between them using heavy duty insulated alligator clips
on a jumper wire. I don't want to add a broken wire to my other troubles.

TKS