Power issues advice

So on random occasions I have had my circuit breaker pop and kill my print. This last time when I turned the circuit breaker back on, the printer started banging on the end stop. It ran for 3 hours before popping the circuit. I have ran other prints for 12 plus hours with no issue. And as for load, it really was a light load on the house, kids, were working, no cooking /baking, no heat or AC running.

here is my setup
makerfarm 10" , heated bed, on the relay, hegagon hotend.
Brand new house. - barely a year old. 20 Amp CB controls the dining room (where the printer is) and part of the living room.
I have this power supply.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ilpage_o03_s00


Just looking for suggestions on troubleshooting, thoughts on what I could/should do different.

Well, if the circuit breaker thinks too much current is flowing it is supposed to trip. You could try replacing the circuit breaker but they don't fail very often. My guess is that won't help.

If you can't identify a heavy load on that circuit, I would plug it into a different circuit. My guess is something spiked the current load and tripped the breaker.

It sucks when that kind of thing happens!

Even at a full 30amp load at 12v, that would equate to less than 4 amps of load on the 20 amp circuit coming from your printer assuming around 80% efficiency in the power supply.

Maybe try running the printer through an outlet strip; one of those should trip at 15-amps. If that trips, I'd start to question the power supply.

With the house being less than a year old, it could be that you've got an arc fault type of breaker on that circuit that looks for more than just the amount of load current. I know they're required on bedroom circuits; not sure why one would be on the dining room circuit, but it's a possibility. The breaker would likely be labeled as AFCI type if it is.

It is on a power strip. I will check it out. I will also check the breaker type

For completeness, here's some info on arc fault breakers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc-fa...it_interrupter

That article does state that the US National Electric Code (NEC) has required AFCI on mostly everything since 2014. So, depending on what code has been applied in usarmyaircav's jurisdiction, finding an AFCI breaker on the dining room is reasonable. The article also talks about the tendencies for the AFCI breakers to falsely trip. Perhaps there's an input surge current that the breaker is interpreting as an arc condition, causing it to trip. One thought would be to run the printer off a hefty UPS of some sort - one that can handle 500W or so. That might provide enough isolation/filtering to keep an AFCI breaker from tripping on short duration spikes.

Hmm, interesting read.

Apparently it is now all rooms, not just bedrooms.

I've never heard of them being used at all in domestic installations, I don't think they are used in the UK but I suppose being an old git I am probably out of touch. Maybe it is because our currents are lower than the states for a given power though our total power capability per supply is a lot higher at 100 amp 230 volts.

Do they trip with neon bulbs? That's an arc.