Fuse Coordination - Same Manufacturer

[Jason Spray]

Is there any reason that all fuses in a facility would need to be the same manufacturer. A customer of ours is being told that it would cause problems

 

[petersonra]

Is there any reason that all fuses in a facility would need to be the same manufacturer. A customer of ours is being told that it would cause problems

Short answer is "No".

Long answer is there are some caveats to the short answer but as long as they are UL classifed fuses (like Class CC or Class J) you are free to mix and match manufacturers as you see fit, even within the same fuseblock. If you need 30 Amp Class J fuses to protect a 3 phase motor, you can have three different manufacturers of 30 Amp class J fuses in the same fuseblock protecting the motor.

 

[Jraef]

By "coordination" in your thread title, do you mean FAULT coordination? Because if you are referring to series listings of fuses, where you rely upon an upstream fuse let-through to allow the use of a lower AIC rated fuse down stream, it might be valid, or at least used to be. When manufacturers do series listings, they generally do NOT do so with competitor's products; why would they? So if you have 100kAIC available and you use a Current Limiting fuse on a main, then fuses rated for 50kAIC down stream, you need a series combination t=rating of those fuses to be able to use them. So Bussman would test THEIR fuses in series, but Bussman would not waste money paying for testing of their lower rated fuses below a Littelfuse main.

That issue however is largely irrelevant now, because unless you are ealing with Fault Current levels in excess of 200kA, it's not that hard to just find fuses rated 200kAIC for just about any application, rendering the series combination listing of fuses pointless. So then you are back to what Bob said.

 

[ron]

What type of coordination are you referring to in the subject?

Selective coordination such as that required in Article 700? If so, then I can understand the AHJ requiring same manufacturer for those items requiring selective coordination per the minimum code, but not everything in the facility.

 

[EmagSamurai]

I'm not sure if this is is the same issue that the OP is asking about, but I have been told by manufacturers that coordination below .01 s (the bottom of the TCC) is only guaranteed between fuses that have been tested and shown to do so. As Jraef mentioned, manufacturers will do this testing within their product families, but it would I would be surprised to find any manufacturers testing other's fuses. This issue came up in the industry I work in back in the 80s for mission-critical systems, and it required third party testing to verify.

That said, below 0.01 is sub one-cycle. So this may or may not be of concern for you.

 

[jim dungar]

That said, below 0.01 is sub one-cycle. So this may or may not be of concern for you.

But it occurs whenever the fault current exceeds the 0.01 sec crossing point for the fuse curve. Which is not unreasonable to happen, with smaller fuses (200A and smaller) and large available fault currents.

 

[EmagSamurai]

But it occurs whenever the fault current exceeds the 0.01 sec crossing point for the fuse curve. Which is not unreasonable to happen, with smaller fuses (200A and smaller) and large available fault currents.

That is correct. And it has caused me a great deal of grief in the past.