In my house where I put in a new panel and rewired during renovations (5-6 years ago) I had to put in an AFCI (arc fault breaker) for the bedroom (part of building code). Not only do the bedroom outlets run off this breaker so do the kitchen potlights (6 of them).

What appears to be happening now is anytime a load is put on that circuit (I plug TV into outlet or turn lights on) the breaker trips. I exchanged the breaker with a new one but same problem. It doesn’t seem to be a short otherwise the breaker would trip with no load. Seems the breaker is detecting what its suppose to….and that is an arc of some sort (otherwise why would it trip). Now of course the question is, where is the source of the fault?

What would be your suggestion? Replace one by one the outlets? Take the potlights out of the ceiling to see if they are a problem. Obviously the wiring is behind the drywall so can’t do anything there?

Just not sure what to do to fix?

Any ideas?

I would first look for a loose neutral in the circuit panel.

As HK suggests, first verify that all the wiring connections that are easily accessible are correct and tight.
If the AFCI is still tripping, you can begin the search by disconnecting the circuit somewhere near the mid-point and turn it back on for a while to see if it holds... if the AFCI continues to trip disconnect that half of the circuit in half, etc.
The intention of course is to get as close the problem as possible and then you may be able to identify that a certain load is causing the trip or you actually have a piece of wire that is arcing to some ground source...
Good luck...

Often, the action of turning on a switch can cause a AFCI breaker to trip, a worn out switch will cause excessive arcing in the switch.

Replace switch.

Question, does your home have Copper or Aluminum wiring?

Thanks Guys. The wire is copper and the whole basement along with panel was replaced 5 years ago (so relatively new). The breaker trips anytime any load is put on the circuit. Meaning if I plug something into any of the sockets or flip the switch that has 6 potlights on the circuit the breaker flips. I've taken out all the light bulbs and breaker will not trip if there are no light bulbs and switch is turned on... but if there are any bulbs in any of the 6 sockets it trips the breaker.

I'll start taking apart all the sockets as suggested and see if I can pinpoint the source. Hopefully its not behind the drywall as that would be very difficult to fix.

I guess bottom line is that there is some arc somewhere happening causing the breaker to flip and I have to pinpoint that source - right?

What a pain!

Ron

Ron,
Yes, sometimes AFCI tripping issues can be difficult... take it slow and draw diagrams
Of the paths your on and have tested...
If all the lights are off and you plug something into a receptacle, does it trip?