I've a new basement kitchen 20amp circuit (with regular 20 amp breaker) that has a blank face AFCI (near the panel), GFCI outlet (first outlet in the kitchen) and regular outlet at the end (used a 15 amp in a 20 amp circuit for testing purposes only. Did not have a 20amp outlet). See picture below to see how I wired them (note: AFCi was blank face).
- When turned on the breaker and reset the AFCI (comes as off mode), small explosion took place in the GFCI box.
- Turned off the breaker and checked to and saw the black line wire to GFCI was severed, in side the box. Checked the wiring and it was correct (already have 4 other new circuits that are protected by either AFCI or GFCI, but not both in the same branch circuit).
- Then disconnected the regular outlet, repaired the connection and tried again (with AFCI and GFCI only). Seemed to have been working ok.
- Used an outlet tester (Kline tools see below for pic.) with lights to test them. When both are on tester indicates it was wired correctly. When the AFCI is off and GFCI is on, tester plugged into GFCI was off. When AFCI is on and GFCI is off the test lights indicate the hot and ground were reversed.
- Can anyone shed some light into why 1) the small explosion happened? 2) the tester lights indicate that ground and hot are reversed? Btw, I did check the connections yet again and they are correctly wired, no cuts and not touching.
- Also, I did the above testing with a table lamp plugged to the GFCI and the lamp was off when either AFCI or GFCI was set to off.
If the picture does not show the correct way to wire, how to do it. A picture is better, with explanation.