Why circuit breaker

A switch is typically used as an isolator, turning power on and off to a particular device. 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.

Open the door to the breaker box and look for the toggles. They look like blocky light switches mounted sideways. Most should be pointing toward the panel center, indicating the ON position. Toggles pointing away from the panel center are OFF. Toggles in an in-between position are the one s which have tripped. If your home has a circuit breaker that repeatedly trips, it is important to understand the reason why to prevent it from happening again, and safeguard against electrical fire and injury.

If a circuit breaker repeatedly trips, or you see charred breakers, notice a burning smell or see signs of fire, turn off the main breaker to your panel and contact and electrical professional immediately. The conductor offers a certain amount of resistance to this flow, which varies depending on the conductor's composition and size.

This makes intuitive sense: If you increase the pressure working on electric charge or decrease the resistance, more charge will flow. If you decrease pressure or increase resistance, less charge will flow. To learn more, check out How Electricity Works. The power distribution grid delivers electricity from a power plant to your house. Inside your house, the electric charge moves in a large circuit, which is composed of many smaller circuits.

One end of the circuit, the hot wire , leads to the power plant. The other end, called the neutral wire , leads to ground. Because the hot wire connects to a high energy source, and the neutral wire connects to an electrically neutral source the earth , there is a voltage across the circuit — charge moves whenever the circuit is closed.

The current is said to be alternating current , because it rapidly changes direction. The power distribution grid delivers electricity at a consistent voltage and volts in the United States , but resistance and therefore current varies in a house.

All of the different light bulbs and electrical appliances offer a certain amount of resistance, also described as the load. This resistance is what makes the appliance work. A light bulb, for example, has a filament inside that is very resistant to flowing charge. The charge has to work hard to move along, which heats up the filament, causing it to glow.

In building wiring, the hot wire and the neutral wire never touch directly. The charge running through the circuit always passes through an appliance, which acts as a resistor. In this way, the electrical resistance in appliances limits how much charge can flow through a circuit with a constant voltage and a constant resistance, the current must also be constant. Appliances are designed to keep current at a relatively low level for safety purposes. Too much charge flowing through a circuit at a particular time would heat the appliance's wires and the building's wiring to unsafe levels, possibly causing a fire.

This keeps the electrical system running smoothly most of the time. But occasionally, something will connect the hot wire directly to the neutral wire or something else leading to ground. For example, a fan motor might overheat and melt, fusing the hot and neutral wires together. Or someone might drive a nail into the wall , accidentally puncturing one of the power lines.

When the hot wire is connected directly to ground, there is minimal resistance in the circuit, so the voltage pushes a huge amount of charge through the wire. If this continues, the wires can overheat and start a fire. The circuit breaker's job is to cut off the circuit whenever the current jumps above a safe level. The electrical system in every home features a system of circuits controlled and protected either by circuit breakers or fuses. Most of today's homes now use circuit breakers to offer this control and protection to individual circuits, but older homes that have not had their electrical systems upgraded may use fuses.

The circuit breakers or fuses are normally found in a central main service panel. Circuit breakers are automatically operated electrical switches with on and off buttons. They're designed to protect an electrical circuit from damage due to excess electrical currents.

You likely already know where your main service panel is located and whether your system uses circuit breakers or fuses. And you probably also know that when all the lights and fixtures in a portion of the house go dark or dead at the same time, it's because one of those circuit breakers has "tripped" or one of those fuses as blown. These devices are designed to automatically shut off power to the circuit when problems occur. The "fix" is to reset the breaker lever to the ON position or replace the blown fuse.

In the case of circuit breakers, the immediate answer is to find the breaker that has tripped and reset the lever to the ON position. When a fuse blows , a metal filament inside the fuse has burned through, meaning that you'll need to replace the fuse with a new one.

But in order to avoid having it happen again, it is also important that you understand why the breaker has tripped or the fuse has blown. In rare cases, the breaker may be damaged and will need to be replaced by a professional. But in most cases, the breaker or fuse is just doing its job when it pops. Circuit breakers are designed to trip and fuses are designed to blow and turn off the power when any of four dangerous situations occur.

An overloaded electrical circuit is the most common reason for a circuit breaker tripping. It occurs when a circuit is attempting to draw a greater electrical load than it is intended to carry.