Products Digital tools Training Specifying Get involved Support Homepage / Get involved / News and press / Preventing Electrical Hazards Preventing Electrical Hazards Arc fault detection devices can detect electrical arcs and cut power in a circuit before a fire can start. Us­ing AF­D­D's To Pre­vent Elec­trical Fires The elec­trical in­dustry is con­stantly in­nov­at­ing, de­vel­op­ing new ways to make in­stall­a­tion and op­er­a­tion safer. Elec­trical arcs re­main a sig­ni­fic­ant cause of fires across the world, which has led to the de­vel­op­ment of arc fault de­tec­tion devices (AFDD). What is arc fault circuit protection? More ad­vanced than a tra­di­tional cir­cuit breaker, AF­DDs are fit­ted with an in­tel­li­gent mi­cro­pro­cessor. This al­lows each AFDD unit to ana­lyse the wave­form of voltage and cur­rent to de­tect a pos­sible each arc in the con­nec­ted cir­cuit. The AFDD can ac­cur­ately tell the dif­fer­ence between real arc faults and nor­mal, switch­ing events. When a dan­ger­ous arc flash is de­tec­ted, the AFFD breaks the cir­cuit and stops the flow of elec­tri­city ef­fect­ively ex­tin­guish­ing the dan­ger­ous arc. The abil­ity to tell the dif­fer­ence between nat­ur­ally oc­cur­ring arcs from switch­ing events for ex­ample and dan­ger­ous arcs pre­vents false trip­ping and in­creases the over­all safety of the in­stall­a­tion. Where is arc fault protection required? The in­clu­sion of Arc fault de­tec­tion devices is re­com­men­ded in the 18th edi­tion of BS 7671 as an ad­di­tional meas­ure for pre­vent­ing elec­trical fires. As a res­ult, AF­DDs are an es­sen­tial as­pect of any com­pli­ant build. AF­DDs can de­tect both series and par­al­lel arcs. Con­trary to pop­u­lar be­lief, AF­DDs do work on ring fi­nal cir­cuits however a series arc will not oc­cur on the ring cir­cuit cable it­self, a par­al­lel arc, however, is de­tec­ted and dis­con­nec­ted. Any cable com­ing off the ring cir­cuit however like a spur or flex­ible lead to an ap­pli­ance is af­forded both series and par­al­lel arc pro­tec­tion. Us­ing AFDD units from Hager, there­fore of­fers com­plete pro­tec­tion across res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties. The AF­D­D’s on­board mi­cro­pro­cessor re­li­ably de­tects arcs caused by broken or dam­aged cables, in­cor­rect ter­min­a­tion, de­fect­ive plugs and flex­ible cables or other sim­ilar factors. The AFDD im­me­di­ately trips and there­fore cuts the power off when a po­ten­tially haz­ard­ous arc oc­curs, help­ing to pre­vent elec­trical fires or phys­ical in­jur­ies. Flexible electric arcing prevention options For one-off pro­jects, in­stalling Hager AF­DDs is as quick and easy as in­stalling tra­di­tional cir­cuit break­ers. For lar­ger pro­jects it is worth con­sid­er­ing our tailored solutions. We can spe­cify and build pre-con­figured hy­brid AFDD con­sumer units ac­cord­ing to the spe­cific­a­tions of your pro­ject, ready for im­me­di­ate in­stall­a­tion. Choos­ing tailored AFDD pro­tec­tion en­sures full com­pli­ance with the 18th edi­tion of BS7671 out of the box. It also dra­mat­ic­ally in­creases the speed at which your con­sumer units can be de­ployed. Or­ange Elec­trical Con­tract­ors took this route, in­stalling 28 AFDD consumer units in a new 210-bed­room stu­dent ac­com­mod­a­tion block near War­wick Uni­versity. Tom Kennedy, the Dir­ec­tor was clear about the ad­vant­ages: “By us­ing a tailored solu­tion from Hager, the Pre-con­figured Hy­brid AFDD con­sumer unit of­fers plenty of space and ac­cess­ib­il­ity so that our en­gin­eers can work com­fort­ably and at ease. On a large-scale com­mer­cial pro­ject like this, in­stall­a­tion speed is also of the es­sence and can be the dif­fer­ence in en­abling us to stay on track with con­struc­tion dead­lines. The pre-as­sembled nature of the Hager hy­brid dis­tri­bu­tion board has made a real dif­fer­ence to us.” Tailored solu­tions go bey­ond simply pre-pop­u­lat­ing boards. We provide cus­tom­ised as­sembly, steel­work and group­ing of products to build hy­brid units that in­crease elec­trical safety and which are prop­erly spe­ci­fied to the phys­ical in­stall­a­tion spe­cif­ics of the prop­erty. Com­pli­ant, safe and aes­thet­ic­ally pleas­ing, there is al­ways an arc fault de­tec­tion device to meet the needs of your pro­ject. And if there is­n’t, we can design and build it for you. Products Catalogues and brochures Commercial distribution Modular devices Lighting connection Residential distribution Wiring accessories Building automation Digital tools BIM ETIM hagercad.pro Support Contact us Training FAQs Marketing support Newsletter Want to receive all the latest in Hager news and product launches? Policies and Certificates About us Privacy Cookies Fol­low us Hager Ltd, Hortonwood 50, Telford, Shropshire, TF1 7FT Registered in England, No: 01551990 VAT Number: GB 713 2273 68