Circuit Breakers Blog – Expert Safety and Usage Information

On a field service project, the customer was amazed at how much equipment we had on the large service vans. Besides the test equipment for old and newer circuit breakers and for oil filled power transformers and switchgear, we had the equipment and tools to maintain the switchgear and make many potential repairs. Plus generators, fuel and lights and much more. The customer asked, kind of as a joke, if we had anything on the trucks that was very important but wasn’t technical. This was a shutdown project where the power was turned off at 5:00 AM and had to be back on by 11:00 AM. A lot of work in six hours, including replacing one of the circuit breakers.

The immediate simultaneous response from two Engineering Technicians was, “Hornet Spray.”  Each truck has at least one can of hornet, actually wasp spray, in a can that will spray a stream 10 to 15 feet. We learned decades ago that it can be painful if you have a short shutdown project and open up the switchgear to access your favorite Square D circuit breakers or Westinghouse circuit breakers or new Siemens circuit breakers and you find the switchgear to be a hotel for a bunch of wasp nests. Hard to find a volunteer to take the bite clearing out wasp nests so you can replace circuit breakers. Instead, a little stream of spray here and there and you’re ready to go. No customer wants their project put at risk because of a few bees, even if they are mad. The bees that is. It’s a magic solution for a non technical problem.  So that’s something non technical but extremely important for an outdoor project to inspect, test and maintain circuit breakers and electrical switchgear. Don’t leave home without it.  

KD3400 Cutler Hammer Circuit Breaker For Sale

We grabbed another circuit breaker out of one of the junk breaker barrels. This one was a Cutler Hammer KD3400.  Again, at first the breaker looked clean and happy. But it only took a second to realize the operating handle was broken off. It takes a pretty hard blow to break the handle off a Cutler Hammer circuit breaker. Handles can be easily replaced. But further inspection revealed serious carbon residue in the area of the line side terminals. You could wipe it off but if there is enough to be visible on the outside, there is something seriously wrong inside. Most of the screws were still missing from the cover, so a technician had removed the cover for inspection of the interior of the circuit breaker and put the cover back on with only a couple screws. A quick conversation with the technician reveal that the arcing contacts were destroyed on two poles and two main contacts were seriously damaged. There was heat damage to pole pieces and arcing damage to the interior insulating, dielectric, material. This Cutler Hammer KD3400 circuit breaker was trash. The breaker did not need to be tested. It was rejected based solely on the visible damage to the operating mechanism, main contacts, and arcing contacts. Square D, Cutler Hammer, GE General Electric or Siemens circuit breakers, it doesn’t make a difference. When this happens, they all fit into the same junk barrels.

MIDWEST had a call from a purchasing agent for a manufacturing plant. He was suppose to purchase a 1200 amp Cutler Hammer circuit breaker that he was told could handle 65,000 amps. All he knew was, he had a

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bunch of numbers and when he asked about one of them he was told it meant the breaker could carry 65,000 amps. He was confused and really stressed because he had no idea what to order, but he knew he was getting some bad information. He wanted to order a Cutler Hammer HND312T33W circuit breaker. He wanted to be sure he was getting the right thing and then just move on. He was very busy and this request was just overwhelming. We explained in basic terms the circuit breaker was rated to handle 1200 amps. Anything more and it would eventually trip. The 65,000 amp rating just meant, if there was a terrible sudden short circuit where 1000s of amps flowed through the breaker for a fraction of a second, the breaker would safely trip and interrupt the current, as long as it was 65,000 amps or less. If it was more than 65,000 amps, the breaker might not interrupt the flow of current. The breaker might fail, with a loud blast. Or worse yet, someone could get seriously injured. It is a little scary how often some folks are given the huge responsibility to located electrical equipment when they have such limited information. Fortunately, MIDWEST specializes in taking care of just such calls.  Our switchgear personnel have decades of hands on experience with Cutler Hammer circuit breakers, Square D circuit breakers and many others. They know more than just the numbers. This is so critical when a customer calls and has poor or even wrong information. We want everyone to be safe. 

MIDWEST frequently gets calls about brand new circuit breakers nuisance tripping. The owner often believes they have a

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 defective new breaker, because it just should not be tripping. For example, a 2000 amp Square D or Cutler Hammer or General Electric main circuit breaker for new switchgear suddenly trips in the middle of the day two weeks after the new switchgear is energized for the first time. It’s agonizing

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when an owner spends a lot of money for new equipment and suddenly they have a problem they never experienced with the old equipment which had been around for 30 years. If he or she is in charge of the new project, or maybe just in charge of maintenance, they can be in big trouble with non technical management. Sometimes they are so panicky it is hard to get the information needed to determine what the problem may be.  We calm them down by telling them they probably don’t need a new replacement 2000 amp Siemens or Cutler Hammer circuit breaker. Usually the problem is the pickup settings of the circuit breaker have not been properly set. If an analysis was performed to determine the proper breaker settings, it may have never been given to the installation contractor. Equipment delivered from the manufacturer is often set in minimums. Minimum pickups and minimum trips times. We might see a 2000 amp main circuit breaker set to pickup at 50%, 1000

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amps. Or we might see the ground fault protection set at 100 amps pickup, range may be 100 to 1200 amps, and possibly 0.1 seconds (minimum) delay. All the settings on adjustable circuit breakers should be determined by an engineering analysis and set up accordingly. Very low ground fault pick up settings are most insidious because a small ground fault deep in the power distribution system may trip a new Siemens circuit breaker for the whole facility.  So once we get the manufacturer and catalog number, we can tell them what to look for, as far as settings on their brand new circuit breakers. Usually a few quick phone

 calls will locate the analysis data and on site instructions to their electrical contractor will make the problem go away.  If an analysis was not performed, temporary conservative settings might be used until a proper engineering analysis can be performed. The National Electrical Code does recommend testing the ground fault “system” of new main switchboards.