Arc fault and electric blanket

[Dennis R]

Hi guys,

I had a 4 month old arc fault breaker trip last night (arc fault type trip). The wiring in the house itself is 3 years old, but not energized until 4 months ago.

I did have an electric blanket on at the time. I've had the blanket a few years. I'm thinking this caused the trip. I did reset the breaker with the blanket on, but it didn't trip. Before I went back to bed though, I did shut off the blanket.

A visual of the blanket didn't reveal anything.

Has anyone heard of the arc faults tripping from an electric blanket?

[Rick Hurst]

Was it wet?
Maybe you need a Depends:eek:

[Bruce King]

Probably a bad electric blanket or loose connection in the outlet.


This special satellite located in a very quiet part of the mountains had some noise interference years ago. They had to load up a van full of equipment and drive around to find the source of the noise.

They traced the problem to an electric blanket inside a dog house.
They had to buy the dog a new blanket before removing the bad one.



Green Bank Radio Telescope -- Sightseeing with Google Satellite Maps (http://www.satellite-sightseer.com/id/15221/United_States/West_Virginia/Green_Bank/Green_Bank_Radio_Telescope)

[A.D. Miller]

Hi guys,

I had a 4 month old arc fault breaker trip last night (arc fault type trip). The wiring in the house itself is 3 years old, but not energized until 4 months ago.

I did have an electric blanket on at the time. I've had the blanket a few years. I'm thinking this caused the trip. I did reset the breaker with the blanket on, but it didn't trip. Before I went back to bed though, I did shut off the blanket.

A visual of the blanket didn't reveal anything.

Has anyone heard of the arc faults tripping from an electric blanket?

Dennis: How do you know the breaker is 4 months old? It could be a first generation unit that was only installed 4 months ago. The early production models were prone to nusiance tripping.

Check the continuity in the electric blanket. Then test the circuit. If you don't find problems there, replace the AFCI with a brand new unit.

Aaron

[Jerry Peck]

Could be a bad controller (or just an el cheapo one with cheap contacts, etc.) for the electric blanket.

But I'm going with the electric blanket/its controller, especially since AFCI breakers are looking for 'noise' on the line, and that switching on/off may just have caused 'noise' on the ac wiring which 'was close enough' to what the AFCI was looking for. Meaning the blanket/controller may not be 'bad', just 'not good for that AFCI'.