I surmised that there must be a trickle of current being utilized by the sensor, but I still don't know how a current, no matter how small, can be flowing in a circuit that has the switch turned off. Both hot and neutral connect to the breaker, but the other end (switch) is open, no contact, thus no current flow. The sensor circuit can only flow within the breaker. Or so my logic leads and dumps me. So I'm still confused.[ Parent ]
If there is sufficient noise produced by the sensing circuit in the AFCI, there may be transients that are sufficient to pass through. One of those cable sniffers may be able to provide some insight, if straight out ripping one apart doesn't reveal the answer. :)
If the LED lights have a CdS cell in them to detect light, it is highly possible that this is how they are set up, and so will not light up when plugged into a regular outlet. Small power supplies inside such things are notorious for using capacitive-transformerless designs, which are rather 'sensitive' to high frequency switching like what may be happening inside the AFCI.
Not 100% on this, but it's likely.
Steve [ Parent ]
