[RFI] Arc-fault breakers

[Bill Weaver]

Yes, I built a house in Lexington, Ky in 2011. At that time Eaton breakers were vulnerable to RF. The whole neighborhood was new development and every house around me were full of them. In addition to living under an HOA, I was restricted to 10 watts as I could shut down the neighborhood with any more power. Sometime the 10W output could trigger my breaker. The ARRL labs studied the problem and worked with Eaton (from the ARRL site: ARRL Helps Manufacturer to Resolve Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter RFI Problems) to convince them of the problem and to implement a fix. At the time it was reported that Eaton did not implement the fix across the board but implemented a design modification in a special run of breakers and was open to free replacement with the special "Ham" modified breaker. I'm not sure how things have progressed. Hopefully they have depleted inventory of the faulty devices and now there full product line implements the modification.

73,
Bill WE5P

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On Feb 22, 2020, 02:31, at 02:31, Dennis Monticelli <dennis.monticelli at gmail.com> wrote:
>I am remodeling kitchen and bath.  The new electrical code here in CA
>requires a number of things that are potentially harmful to our hobby. 
>For
>example the use of arc-fault breakers.  I know that one of the
>techniques
>for identifying arcs involves detecting broadband RF.  Does anyone have
>any
>experience with transmissions false triggering these devices?
>
>Dennis AE6C
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