Come On Back

Automobile maintenance got too complex for most do-it-yourselfers. The same has been happening with some home repairs. With home electrical, it just got trickier -- with the requirement of "arc-fault protection" for most areas of the house.

An arc-fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) is a special circuit breaker in your electrical panel designed to sense arcing (sparking) that might present a fire hazard.

These have been required for bedroom areas of homes built since 2002. Beginning in 2008 they are also required to cover most other areas -- except those that must already have ground-fault (GFCI) protection. Because AFCI devices have some ground-fault sensing also built into them, it looks like the AFCI is the wave of the future in home electrical safety technology, perhaps replacing GFCI devices as well as regular breakers.

Should you welcome this as a good safety net, or do you wonder if it is part of a sticky spider web, brought to you by manufacturers, insurance companies, and regulatory engineers? I won't answer that for you or try to give statistics. What I will do here is point out what a homeowner is up against if one of these new breakers should happen to trip off.

Standard old fuses and circuit breakers would blow or trip for three possible causes.

Two of these were common and familiar to most people:

1. Either electrical usage was excessive (an overload)...

2. Or current was trying to get way out of control from wires faulting (a "short").

Many homeowners could handle the troubleshooting needed to solve these conditions. (The third problem has to do with poor connections right at the fuse or breaker, which overheat it and make it blow when it wouldn't otherwise.)

An arc-fault breaker will trip for any of these same problems, but in addition it will trip for some ground-faults and for arc-faults.

If an AFCI trips, how will you know what sort of cause you are looking for? Will you have to become more dependent on professionals from the industries that dreamed these things up?

In general and in a nutshell:

*An overload (or an overheating breaker) will correspond to heavier usage;

*A short or ground-fault will tend to continue to trip the AFCI very soon after you reset it;

*An arc-fault will tend not to repeat the tripping soon, since the conditions for an arc to get going do not often persist after the arc is stopped by the tripping.

If an arcing condition does exist somewhere on such an AFCI circuit, you may have to put up with the nuisance of the occasional tripping, till it goes away or is solved. But do not get freaked, as if something is going to start a fire.

That is the whole point of these AFCIs -- no such fire will have a chance to start.

And that is the point of many products in our life today -- after hazards have been publicized enough, we will comfort ourselves by buying these things that seem to foolproof life. I hope we are not fools in the process.

Larry Dimock is The Circuit Detective, a master electrician and electrical troubleshooting contractor in the state of Washington. His website is filled with home electrical troubleshooting information and tips. He also gives advice from there, to homeowners around the country, on their specific circuit problems. See http://www.thecircuitdetective.com

Reuters - Barack Obama, trying to enjoy the last semblance of normal life before he becomes U.S. president on January 20, caused a commotion when he took his daughters to a shopping mall in Hawaii on Friday.

The Nintendo Wii is a great games console. It is radically different from other game consoles available on the market. The games included with the Wii are excellent and introduce you to the Wii controller in a very appropriate manner. They all have the usual Nintendo feel and stamp of family fun. The Wii remote and the Nunchuck controller feel a little different at first, but they are very intuitive to use because using body movements to play games is far easier than just pressing keys.

Wii setup is pretty easy and enables you to start playing games fairly quickly. Playing games on the Wii is smooth and very absorbing. Even though Wii graphics do not have the best resolution, they are more than adequate for games. What is truly innovative is the design of the games controller, and the way Nintendo have integrated it into the manner in which you have to play the games. If you like to play games with friends and family, you will have to get a second controller to get into the spirit of things; you will not regret it.

The Wii wireless setup is also very easy. After connecting the Wii, you can immediately check sports, weather, and news over Nintendo's free online service. The Wii uses a standard SD card for memory. You can get a Wii high capacity memory card for a fairly reasonable price.

The battery life in the Wii leaves something to be desired. The Wii drains AA batteries fairly quickly. The Wii remote sometimes looses it's connection with the console when the batteries are low on power. The Wii wrist strap may not be very durable, but Nintendo are very prompt in dealing with any warranty claims you may have.

The quality of the materials and workmanship on the Wii is excellent. The Wii remote is sturdy enough to withstand being dropped by kids. The Nintendo Wii usually sells out very quickly, so get it as soon as it is available at your local store.

Gregory Hepburn is a successful Internet marketer and entrepreneur who specializes in content websites. His new website on Nintendo Wii Games has been published. Please see http://www.buy-nintendo-wii.org for more information.

E! Online - Jay is unwittingly looking to add Mohr laughs to his life.