Fire hazards of receptable adaptors

[Joe Funderburk, CMI]

A picture is worth a thousand words. The adaptor was smoking. The breaker never tripped.

[Jeffrey R. Pope]

Originally Posted by jfunderburk

The breaker never tripped.

Quite common actually. It only takes a few amps to fry the receptacle and/or adaptor. It takes 15 to 20 amps to trip the breaker.

This would have likely tripped an AFCI breaker, however.

[agallatin]

Originally Posted by jpope

Quite common actually. It only takes a few amps to fry the receptacle and/or adapter. It takes 15 to 20 amps to trip the breaker.

This would have likely tripped an AFCI breaker, however.

I find this strange . You would think that once the short starts that the current draw would increase , drawing more amps .

[Jeffrey R. Pope]

Originally Posted by agallatin

You would think that once the short starts that the current draw would increase , drawing more amps .

That's exactly the reason AFCI's were developed.

An arc, capable of igniting combustible material, can be generated at relatively low amperage. A fire can be started long before there is enough draw to trip the circuit breaker.