Information on Arcing & Breakers

[Paul W. Abernathy]

http://www.zlan.com/faq.htm#causes%20arcing

Enjoy !

[Greg Fretwell]

A nice self serving piece. Get the snake oil straight from the snake huh?

[mthomas2]

Well... at a minimum... they have a nice explanation of the difference between parallel and series arcs

http://zlan.com/arc.htm

[Greg Fretwell]

Siemens is bragging that they have figured out how to detect a series arc. We will see how that works out for them.
Cuttler Hammer has been telliing us it is parallel arcs that cause all the problems, mostly because that is what their product detects.
If you have concerns with aluminum wire (and that is a popular thread here), bear in mind that is a series arc, not a parallel one.
I still believe 99.9% of the real life protection you get from AFCIs comes from the ground fault protection, not the arc detection. Most actual faults these will detect will be line to ground and the GF protection will kick in long before the AF ever gets triggered. Ground fault protection trips on the FIRST 30ma imbalance. Arc fault protection needs to see several spikes in the 60-70a range within a set period of time.

[Bruce A. King]

you meant 60-70ma I hope.......

[Greg Fretwell]

Nope. a parallel arc is defined by 60 or 70 amp spikes fairly close together.