Actually, I started changing my mind back when we were talking about AFCI's and I found out that they didn't protect from series faults.
I agree that the lab experiment you speak of wasn't official and we can choose to ignore it, but when Virginia, Massachusettes, and Nebraska say "no" to 210.12, that speaks volumes.
I had planned in the beginning to replace my fuse-box with a panel and have everything on AFCI (since I have an old house).
Mike Holt's email to my response of the article above said the very same thing.
AFCI's are the modern trade equivalent to snake oil.
I'll stand firm on that opinion until they come up with one that detects series faults.
As far as UL, I'm sure they tested to see if they would detect parallel faults, and I imagine that the manufacturers were quite honest with UL on the limited ability to detect series faults, and UL dropped the ball by not stating the difference on the Listing and Labelling.
JMHO
I'm not saying that they don't work, I assume they work very well on parallel faults. But the very name of these devices lends one to believe that they can do a whole lot more and protect both types of arcs, and the truth is, they detect the type of arc that is the least likely to cause a fire (between the two, all other things considered equal).
Man, I just get more steamed the more I think about this... They've duped us all!
(Except for the jacklegs that don't even know what an AFCI is and haven't installed any... they're turning out to be the smart ones!)
[This message has been edited by sparky66wv (edited 08-04-2002).]
