ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Breakers not tripping

and

Skipr, re-read iwire's post. Especially this:


I think that's the best explanation of what happened, similar situations have happened to me. (An arcing fault I though would have taken out a breaker, but other problems or a long homerun prevented the trip.)


As others have given other possible explanations here, I will also join the bandwagon of disagreeing with your test method. First, It didn't prove or disprove a bad breaker. Second, various circuit factors could have prevented the tripping of the breaker (for instance, what size was the jumper you used? Anything smaller than the branch circuit conductors would just act as a heater element anyway.) Third, you could have easily started a fire elsewhere if there were any bad/questionable connections or as mentioned, conduit fittings if the EGC was involved.

Finally, it reminded me of the worst possible troubleshooting technique I saw while in the Air Force. One of the avionics techs couldn't figure out why a system kept popping the circuit breaker in the cockpit. His solution? HOLD the breaker in until something smoked. (Aircraft breakers are NOT trip-free.)

That genius caused over $170,000 worth of damage to the aircraft and required the replacement of a wiring harness from the cockpit back to the tail. And yes, he was discharged and had to pay back the damage. (It wasn't his first time using the "smoke test.")

So you learned that a teacher was dumb enough to get her jewlery into a hot outlet. The thing to have done was replace the outlet and move on.

Even a simple bad plug on a cord can arc enough to look really bad, and those who don't know electricity tend to get overly dramatic when describing arc faults.

Nothing personal, just my 25c. (Used to be 2c, inflation, you know.)