Federal Pacific Electric Panel/ 120/240 residential---Question

[jwelectric]

Welcome back from me as well. Yeah, 140+A for 4 minutes is a big deal on a 60A breaker when it's smoking. Could you link the UL standard you found for those breakers? The one I found:

http://static.schneider-electric.us...100-400 A Frame FA-LA/FA-FC-FH/0600DB0105.pdf

shows that a breaker should trip within 100 seconds if it sees ~1.4-2x its rated current. For a 60A, that's 84-120A in a minute forty seconds. At nearly 2.5x its rated capacity, trip time should be ~15-55 seconds.

Trip curves of manufactures will always be less than the UL Standard. A copy of the UL Standard in question is something like $2700. What I posted is a general rule of thumb that was mentioned at an electrical seminar by a UL narrator a couple of years ago.
Today’s breakers open under thermal, magnetic, and electronic sensors. The old FPE breakers only opened under thermal only therefore the bad publicity.

With today’s technology it is easy to trash something we know nothing about. If you take the time to do research on FPE and Zinsco you will find that most to the bad stuff reported is done so by Home Inspectors and a lot of the information is false. Watching some video of someone welding with a breaker is far from any type of testing. Testing is done by a third party in a testing lab and anything seen on the internet is nothing more than entertainment.

The main problem with these breakers were they opened only after getting hot, very hot if they were the larger size or of more than one pole. This heat caused problems with not only the internal parts of the breaker but also the bus bars.

Now to just sit and trash something just because someone else did I think that Dale should run his last race in Homeland with a 1906 Ford then we would have a good comparison to the old breakers and today’s product. :lol:

 

[goldstar]

Welcome back Mike.

Roger

Yeah, welcome back Mike. How's life on the farm ?

This is an article that I have on my contractors' website regarding the FPE breaker fraud:

http://www.pceca.net/images/stories/the_whistleblower_fpe_fraud.pdf

FWIW, I had an FPE panel in my house that was built in 1970. AFAIK, the breakers had always worked fine but who knows whether they were manufactured in Newark, NJ where the fraud occurred. I've upgraded to a new 150A service when I got central air.

BTW, if anyone wants FPE breakers I have many in my shed waiting for some poor, unsuspecting soul to need a replacement breaker but won't go for the upgrade.:lol: I wonder if the scrap yard will give me any $$ for them.

 

[kwired]

Yeah, welcome back Mike. How's life on the farm ?

This is an article that I have on my contractors' website regarding the FPE breaker fraud:

http://www.pceca.net/images/stories/the_whistleblower_fpe_fraud.pdf

FWIW, I had an FPE panel in my house that was built in 1970. AFAIK, the breakers had always worked fine but who knows whether they were manufactured in Newark, NJ where the fraud occurred. I've upgraded to a new 150A service when I got central air.

BTW, if anyone wants FPE breakers I have many in my shed waiting for some poor, unsuspecting soul to need a replacement breaker but won't go for the upgrade.:lol: I wonder if the scrap yard will give me any $$ for them.

Doubt scrap yard will give you anything worth your time, even if you took them apart and only gave them the metal components.

Was even a FPE breaker in the video - so that make this completely on topic right?

 

[MichiganTop5]

FP panel I yanked out most of the breakers would not trip under overload.

FP panel I yanked out most of the breakers would not trip under overload.

The wiring had problems and when overcurrent occurred the wiring welded together BC the breakers would not trip. Not sure what all panels are known to have this problem but I had a zinsco do this too. It's not that every one of them does but now I have that stigma.

So whenever I see these brands in operation I recommend immediate replacement.

I see many old panels still in good condition, here in Michigan the Bulldogs are very common and they seem to stand the test of time when left untampered.

Also even though I'm not The big Sqr D Fan they also seem to stand the test of time when only touched by pros

Moisture and extreme temperatures will destroy the best of equipment

 

[norcal]

The Challenger Electrical Equipment Corp. did buy FPE, there was a lot of Challenger branded Stablok panels at a local online auction, wonder how good the buyer felt when they found out how much circuit breakers for them cost?:dunce: