Why do CH breakers need to have so many flavors?

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busman

Senior Member
Location
Northern Virginia
Occupation
Master Electrician / Electrical Engineer
In my area, there are LOT of old Cutler-Hammer split bus loadcenters. For a long time, I've been aware that some old CH loadcenters had a bar down the middle that was attached with non-reversible screws and the CB's had a notch in the nose of the breaker to fit this bar.

The other day, I went to install a GFCI in an old CH loadcenter and found it would not fit due to a new problem. There is a raised bump on the underside (bus side) of the breaker near the hook that holds it in the panel. It seems that for the older breakers (with the metal hooks), the bump is smaller and accommodates a ridge on the loadcenter. On newer breakers, this bump is about twice the size of the older bump and does not clear the loadcenter ridge. Was this some old form of CTL. If anyone can explain the evolution of the CH breaker, I sure would appreciate it.

My biggest gripe against CH is the current design of CTL that lets an unsuspecting HO install a piggyback breaker in a CTL loadcenter and the only problem is that the hook does not engage and the loadcenter cover is the only thing holding the breaker in place. What a retarded design.

Thanks,

Mark
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
I sure thought about that. I just wondered if anyone knew why CH is so screwed up on this. Otherwise they make good stuff.

Mark

Those are called rejection tabs.

I don't remember the reason, but there were CH panels made that needed a certain series of breakers. Those breakers had a notch to accommodate the rejection tabs.

I worked for a foreman once that decided he was going to try to remove one of the tabs. Pliers didn't work, so he commenced to try to chisel it out with a hammer and a screwdriver. It wasn't pretty. The bonehead tried to do this with the panel hot and managed to create a big fireball. I don't think as much of the tab was removed as what was removed from my screwdriver. (Note to self, never let boneheads use my tools)
 

jaylectricity

Senior Member
Location
Massachusetts
Occupation
licensed journeyman electrician
I hear you. I bought a CH BR type tandem breaker to put in a panel with other tandem breakers. Come to find out, the one I bought wasn't notched the same as the ones that were in there.

It took a lot of rearranging to get all the circuits on all the breakers that would fit properly in each panel and still not lose safety and capacity for each.
 
Ive noticed that some of the older CH panels have one or two spots on the bus where a breaker with the rejection clip fit, but not on the other spots. Kind of reminds me of old GE panels for some reason.:roll:
 

e57

Senior Member
I'm not sure of my breaker history on CH - but Eaton.... AKA CH and it's many brands that were swapped and traded over the years created about a dozen slightly compatable designs on the BR line as they merged. I assume a little bit of that happened on the CH (blood) line as well???? I figure everytime CH bought another company - there may have been a few bastard child sword fights in the hall... ;)
 

norcal

Senior Member
I remember Westinghouse bought out Bryant, then Eaton (Cutler-Hammer) bought out that division of Westinghouse.

Bryant had been owned by Westinghouse since the early 1900's, as their wiring device division, later Bryant was also their residential/light commercial loadcenter line, at some point the Bryant name was dropped & was rebranded as Westinghouse (wiring devices was sold to Hubbell), plus to make it even more murky as West. bought Challenger (Formerly Zinsco/Sylvania)........
 
I sure thought about that. I just wondered if anyone knew why CH is so screwed up on this. Otherwise they make good stuff.

Mark

Maybe not so screwed up.

Rejection features are in place for several reasons:
  1. SC rating,
  2. Voltage rating,
  3. Other features in the Listing restriction.
Altering the rejection feature is voiding the listing, but it there to keep you out of jail.
 

busman

Senior Member
Location
Northern Virginia
Occupation
Master Electrician / Electrical Engineer
Maybe not so screwed up.

Rejection features are in place for several reasons:
  1. SC rating,
  2. Voltage rating,
  3. Other features in the Listing restriction.
Altering the rejection feature is voiding the listing, but it there to keep you out of jail.

I agree that rejection features are usually a good thing, but CH seems to have them backwards. This little rim around the bus on a 1950's loadcenter is keeping me from installing a brand new circuit breaker of the proper voltage and AIC rating. And yet, there is no rejection feature that keeps me from taking one of those old CH breakers with the metal hooks and a notch in the nose and installing it in a brand new loadcenter.

The other part of my observation was that as far as I know, ONLY CH does it this way. All the other companies seem to have fairly straight forward rejection features for CTL limits.

QO has the metal hook versus the metal clip.
Siemens, BR, HOM, etc. all have the deeper slot to go over the busbar.

Just my opinion. Thought maybe I missed something obvious about the CH design.

Mark
 
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