Arc fault breaker kept tripping on a brand new circuit

Ran a new 15 amp circuit for a home office last week in a house built in 1998. Everything was fine until I plugged in a laser printer and the AFCI breaker tripped after 10 seconds. Checked all my connections terminations everything looked solid. Turns out the printer has a switching power supply that messes with the arc fault detection. Swapped the breaker for a different brand and it's been running fine for 3 days now. Anyone else run into this with certain electronics tripping AFCI breakers?

2 comments

2 Comments

kim6932d ago

Wait, did you try moving the printer to a different outlet first? I read somewhere that switching power supplies like in laser printers can actually create noise that fools the AFCI into thinking there's an arc happening. It's weird cause some brands of AFCI breakers handle that noise better than others. I saw a thread on a DIY site where a guy had the same problem with a refrigerator compressor tripping his brand new AFCI till he swapped it out for a Siemens one. Pretty crazy that a simple printer can mess with a safety device like that.

aaronclark1d ago

Nah, shouldn't the safety device be working right no matter what you plug in?