EATON Arc-Fault breakers tripping due to Radio Interference

Has any one encountered an issue with EATON AFCI breakers tripping due to radio interference? I have read some articles about this and it seems that when there are “Ham” operators in the vicinity it causes these breakers to trip.

I performed an inspection last week where the homeowner said that this was the case and EATON replaced all the AFCI breakers in the home and even did the same thing for neighboring homes. I just finished an inspection and the homeowner is experiencing the same issue.
Has anyone come across this situation? How do you test for this?

Your thoughts…

I think eaton/cutler hammer AFCI breakers were quite sensitive when they first came out. Very touchy. Nuissance tripping a lot. May have been a recall, not sure though. Never heard the radio interference thing.

It is true. My brother works at Eaton corporate, and he talked with one of the managers of the AFCI line. It appears, from your website, that you are in the Villages, which is where the issue was discovered because the breakers were getting blasted with radio waves from a HAM radio convention in the area. Whatever frequencies that they were broadcasting at would energize and overload a self test/trip mechanism inside of the breaker. As of Jan 2015 they have redesigned the breaker and changed the operating frequencies, so that they shouldnt overload anymore.