On Monday, February 22, 2016 at 9:50:09 PM UTC-5, Texas Kingsnake wrote:
"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
...

"Texas Kingsnake" wrote in message
...
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


First thing is to swap wires at the breakers to make sure the new one is
not
faulty.

I am not sure that was done and you have got me thinking - one of the AFCI's
was different than the others - had a little green piece of plastic. I
wonder if a defective AFCI didn't get mixed into the bunch? I will have
him test it next time. The AFCI that popped has been pulled (still hanging
in the box because the pigtail neutral is buried on the first of the tiered
neutral bar connections) and replaced with the old breaker that doesn't
trip.

It's a real nuisance to go back and forth between the two - might have to
set up some jumpers so that I can easily change from AFCI to normal breaker
easily. Not sure how I would do that - a pigtail coming off the two
breakers that I can wire nut to the circuit hot wire?

TKS

Try switching wires at the panel with one of the other AFCI breakers.