> To make a too long story short... There is lots of documentation online
> about Federal Pacific panel and breaker failures - especially two pole
> breakers failing to trip & panel fires when the breaker/bus connection
> fails.
Great point, Bill!
That is why I always have the fuses in each power supply as a back-up.
I learned a lot about CB's in my 33 year career as an airline pilot.
Using them as "on-off" switches will weaken the mechanical parts
inside the breaker. Then all bets are off as to what amperage it takes
to trip them. Also repeated cycles of a breaker can deteriorate the
internal contacts to a point where they carbonize, or even worse,
weld themselves together.
Putting a set of breakers on a radio panel lulls one into using it to
switch the power on and off. I think research will find that the number
of switch cycle times-before-failure (TBF, as the engineers call it,)
are vastly less than a common switch.
(((73)))
Phil, K5PC
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