vacuum cleaner trips AFCI

[Mark Thorman]

I recently started including a disclosure in my reports about certian types of vacuum cleaners tripping AFCI breakers. Has anyone else had this issue regarding the AFCI's.

www.mauihomeinspections.com

[Greg Fretwell]

Are these grounded (3 prong plug)? It might just be an internal short in the vacuum.
Otherwise I think it would be heplful to know if the problem was AFCI brand specific.
There is a certain amout of voodoo in the algorthym they use to detect arcs and some brands may act differently than others.
I am not sure the "series" arc detector is actually in the wild yet and that is the kind of arc you get from the motor brushes.

[Mark Thorman]

Here's a link for Square D.
http://www.squared.com/us/squared/co...2homeowner.pdf