Quad Circuit Breaker - BQC2030

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charlie b

charlie b

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For a High School rennovation project, we need to provide power to shop equipment that the school wants to reuse in the new shop spaces. One item (some type of steam cleaner) has a breaker built into its side wall. It is a Cutler Hammer type BQC2030. For those unfamiliar with this type breaker (like me, for example), I found several places that sell them. Here is link to one of them:
http://www.breakeroutlet.com/BQC220230.htm

My questions:
  • How do I provide power to this piece of equipment?
  • How many circuits do I provide?
  • Are they 20 or 30 amp?
  • Are they 120 or 240 volts?
  • Do they need a 4-way handle tie?
 
Keep in mind that I am dealing with a piece of utilization equipment that has this type of breaker on its side wall. I need to provide one or more branch circuits to feed this equipment. Attached is a photo of the breaker located on the equipment.
 

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  • BQC2030 breaker.jpg
    BQC2030 breaker.jpg
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From your link this CB is for 3 circuits. A 2 pole-20 amp in the center and two single pole 15's on the outside.

BQC220230_1357039357.jpg
 
infinity said:
From your link this CB is for 3 circuits. A 2 pole-20 amp in the center and two single pole 15's on the outside.
Click to expand...
Don't read anything into the link. It was a random hit from a Bing search for the breaker model number.
 
Charlie,

That is a quad breaker in your pic. Commonly called a "trailer breaker" in slang.

A 20A 240V ckt on the outside and a 30A 240V on the inside.

Each ckt is handle tied for disconnecting the ckt and the common trip is for each ckt, not ckts both together.
 
If that breaker is built into the equipment then you need a circuit that is large enough for both loads. Basically there would be 2 lugs for you to install your feeder /branch circuit--- I am not sure but I am guessing the breaker would be supplementary overcurrent protective device.

So now feed the machine with a dp 40, 50 or 60 amp breaker-- should be a nameplate for that
 
The answer to how you provide power to the equipment is:
1. Find the installation instructions and nameplate.
2. Try to figure out where the incoming wires landed where it was previously installed.
3. It definitely needs 240 or maybe 208 as an option.
4. If the breaker on the side is 20 and 30 and between them they supply all loads within the equipment, then you should not need more than a 50A branch to feed the machine.
6. There may be a provision inside the equipment to land more than one supply circuit. The existence of the two breakers does not tell you one way or the other.
7. If the breakers fit the NEC definition of supplemental, then the supply to the machine will be a branch circuit (or circuits), not a feeder.
 
chris kennedy said:
Again, that doesn't mean that is where the feeder(s) land.
Click to expand...

Yep.

Dennis Alwon said:
If that breaker is built into the equipment then you need a circuit that is large enough for both loads. Basically there would be 2 lugs for you to install your feeder /branch circuit--- I am not sure but I am guessing the breaker would be supplementary overcurrent protective device.

So now feed the machine with a dp 40, 50 or 60 amp breaker-- should be a nameplate for that
Click to expand...

I wired a inside AHU that set up that way.
 
I see that there is something I will need to learn about the equipment. We don't know where the wires land. If they land on a pair of terminal lugs, then I would supply a 50 amp circuit. If they land on the quad breaker, then I would supply two circuits. But the remaining (and tricky) question would be whether I need to bring both circuits from the same two phases, and whether it matters which phase is landed on which breaker terminal. I will send these questions out to the field. Many thanks to all for the information.
 
So those are stab-on load center breakers, there is no line terminal block for them, they stab onto bus bars of a load center. If these are the only breakers, then behind the wall of your machine where these are sticking out, there is probably something like a "Spa panel", a little 70A MLO panel with space for exactly 2 SP or 1 DP breakers. But by using the quad, they were able to squeeze 2 DP breakers out of it because it plugs into both bus stabs and each bus powers half of each twin breaker.

This is the 3R version because it's the only one I could find that showed the interior, but they likely used a box only from an indoor version and the machine cover becomes the panel cover. Very common for some machine builders.
spa panel.jpg
 
Yup. You're basically gonna have a 2 circuit load center in the machine. Steam cleaner? My guess is a 2-pole 20-amp vacuum circuit and a 2-pole 30-amp heater circuit.

Feed with one circuit big enough for both. There's got to be lugs in there where the breaker stabs in
 
James L said:
Yup. You're basically gonna have a 2 circuit load center in the machine. Steam cleaner? My guess is a 2-pole 20-amp vacuum circuit and a 2-pole 30-amp heater circuit.

Feed with one circuit big enough for both. There's got to be lugs in there where the breaker stabs in
Click to expand...
Portable pressure washers too, same issue; pump circuit and heater circuit.
 
charlie b said:
I see that there is something I will need to learn about the equipment. We don't know where the wires land. If they land on a pair of terminal lugs, then I would supply a 50 amp circuit. If they land on the quad breaker, then I would supply two circuits. But the remaining (and tricky) question would be whether I need to bring both circuits from the same two phases, and whether it matters which phase is landed on which breaker terminal. I will send these questions out to the field. Many thanks to all for the information.
Click to expand...

How do you figure the circuits would land on the breaker instead of lugs connected to bussing just like a panel? If they land on the breaker, how would you get two circuits(4 wires) out just two buss stabs on the other side of the breaker?
 
Cow said:
How do you figure the circuits would land on the breaker instead of lugs connected to bussing just like a panel? If they land on the breaker, how would you get two circuits(4 wires) out just two buss stabs on the other side of the breaker?
Click to expand...
I suspect that he was not thinking of the breakers as bus mounted since there was no obvious panel cover.
 
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