What do breakers do

You pop in the bread, push down the handle, and then comes the undeniable silence signifying that everything electrical in your home has come to a halt. Sure, you blame the toaster and curse your house, but the tripped circuit that just shut down your power is just doing its job.

The sole responsibility of any given circuit breaker in your home is to protect the electrical wiring in your house and to keep you safe. That protection occurs when the wires in your house or in a particular zone in your house are overloaded with electrical current, causing them to heat up. Instead of transferring that heat to the appliances and electronic items plugged into your outlets, causing them to burn out and potentially resulting in a fire, the circuit breaker trips.

This shuts off the electricity to the entire house or to that select zone at its distribution point. It's important to remember that it's not the number of appliances that cause your power to stop. Instead, it's the size of the wires in your walls and the electrical load you send through those wires.

So, when your circuit breaker trips, you should take it as a sign there could be something wrong with your home's wiring.

You want to call a professional and find out why it tripped. Sure, it could be as simple as a bad breaker, but it could be something much more serious, which only a qualified electrician would be able to evaluate. Inside each circuit breaker is a spring hooked over a small piece of solder a melt-able fusible alloy.

A circuit breaker, on the other hand, can be used to protect a circuit that contains many switches or devices. An exception to this is a disconnect switch, which is used to connect or disconnect power to an entire control panel, or machine. Switches switch and breakers break. These differences are crucial to understanding their safety and practicality. Switches are designed for a high number of operations, how many times the switch is turned on and off.

Circuit breakers are not rated for nearly the same amount of operations. A miniature circuit breaker is a deceiving simple device. It is a much more complicated device, with more parts, than a switch. Cycling a breaker on and off numerous times will result in its eventual failure. Circuit breakers can be rated for switching duty for lighting circuits. SWD stands for Switching Duty. HID breakers are rated up to 50A. Circuit breakers may work more effective as safe switches, but they are not switches.

They are not interchangeable. Therefore, using a circuit breaker as a switch is not recommended. A switch cannot detect and interrupt an overload or fault condition. It would more likely melt or burst into flames. Disclaimer: The content provided is intended solely for general information purposes and is provided with the understanding that the authors and publishers are not herein engaged in rendering engineering or other professional advice or services.

The practice of engineering is driven by site-specific circumstances unique to each project. Consequently, any use of this information should be done only in consultation with a qualified and licensed professional who can take into account all relevant factors and desired outcomes.

The information was posted with reasonable care and attention. However, it is possible that some information is incomplete, incorrect, or inapplicable to particular circumstances or conditions. We do not accept liability for direct or indirect losses resulting from using, relying or acting upon information in this blog post. Home White Papers Circuit Breaker vs. Circuit Breaker vs.

Circuit breakers May be reset after interrupting an overcurrent event Has a higher initial cost Requires maintenance Optional protective features i. Circuit breaker components. Five universal circuit breaker components The five universal circuit breaker components are: Frame — Protects internal parts of the circuit breaker from outside materials Operating mechanism — Provides a means of opening and closing the circuit breaker Contacts — Allows the current to flow through the circuit breaker when closed.

Arc extinguisher — Extinguishes an arc when the circuit breaker interrupts a fault. Trip unit — Opens the operating mechanism in the event of a prolonged overload or short circuit. Frames - circuit breaker component. The circuit breaker frame provides the rigidity and strength required to successfully deal with the interruption process and achieve the desired interrupting ratings. It insulates and isolates the electrical current in order to protect people and equipment during use or operation.

Frames can be made from metal or molded insulating materials. Metal Frame A metal frame is assembled from precise metal pieces that are bolted and welded together to form the frame. Molded Insulated Frame Molded Case Molded case frames are made from strong insulating materials such as glass-polyester or thermoset composite resins plastic frames. Operating mechanism - circuit breaker component. There are two types of operating mechanisms, over toggle and two step stored energy.

Over Toggle The function of the operating mechanism is to provide a means of opening and closing the circuit breaker. Two Step Stored Energy The two-step stored energy mechanism is used when a large amount of energy is required to close the circuit breaker and when it needs to close rapidly. Contacts - circuit breaker component.

The contacts are designed to protect against two fault conditions Overcurrent thermal overload Short Circuit magnetic. Arc extinguisher - circuit breaker component. What is an arc flash Arcs are formed when the contacts of a circuit breaker open due to larger than normal current. Trip unit - circuit breaker component. The function of a trip unit is to trip or open the operating mechanism in the event of a prolonged overload or short circuit fault condition such as thermal overload, short circuit currents and specialty faults.

To accomplish this, an electromechanical or a solid state trip unit is provided. Electromechanical trip units Electromechanical trip units utilize bimetals and electromagnets to provide overload and short circuit protection and do not include any specialty protection such as ground fault.

Electronic trip units Electronic trip units offer capabilities such as programming monitoring diagnostics communications system coordination and testing that are not available on thermal magnetic trip units. Products Electrical circuit protection Circuit breakers Circuit breakers fundamentals. We provide sustainable solutions that help our customers effectively manage electrical, hydraulic, and mechanical power — more safely, more efficiently, and more reliably.

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