Trouble getting Seimans & Cutler Hammer equipment

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electricguy61

electricguy61

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Remotely running business in Bay Area, CA from Med
Anyone else having trouble getting Siemans Single Phase panels & breakers?

We switched from Square D Homeline to Siemans about 2 years ago for a number of reasons:

The doors on the meter/panel combo's were removable and had a built-in hold open feature; problems with the Homeline Arc Fault breakers & nuisance tripping; easier to reach the neutral/ground terminals on the side by side panels.

But for about a year, the supply house is constantly out of stock of various Siemans panels & breakers. There supply of Cutler Hammer hasn't been much better.

Was just wondering if this was a nationwide problem or a local supplier problem
 
electricguy61 said:
Anyone else having trouble getting Siemans Single Phase panels & breakers?

We switched from Square D Homeline to Siemens about 2 years ago for a number of reasons:

The doors on the meter/panel combo's were removable and had a built-in hold open feature; problems with the Homeline Arc Fault breakers & nuisance tripping; easier to reach the neutral/ground terminals on the side by side panels.

But for about a year, the supply house is constantly out of stock of various Siemens panels & breakers. There supply of Cutler Hammer hasn't been much better.

Was just wondering if this was a nationwide problem or a local supplier problem
Click to expand...

Murray Which are Siemens panels are readily available at the depot...:)
 
I heard that there is an issue with Siemens- I don't use it but my supplier stocks it and mentioned it to someone
 
Having worked for Siemens in the past, I'm very familiar with this recurring problem, and why it affects them both. Eaton and Siemens both use the exact same sub component resource (in the Dominican Republic as I recall) for any of the components inside of their breaker product lines, neither of them actually make those parts any longer. Because of that, when that sub component supplier has a problem, both houses of cards collapse. When I worked for Siemens, the issue was China snatching up copper resources and spiking the cost. This resource would hold off on buying copper because their contract prices to Eaton and Siemens were fixed, but the materials were fluctuating too wildly, so they held off on keeping inventory which slowed down the pipeline for both of them.

I'm no longer in that resi product loop, but in general there is now a big shakeup going on in the overall molded case breaker world as everyone scrambles to get ahead of a huge change coming in 2017 to what is called the RoHS rule (Reduction of Hazardous Subtances). A new version was enacted in 2011 that now affects what is called the "end of life" disposal process, requiring that all materials used must be recyclable, including anything plastic. This is forcing CB mfrs to redesign. Because recyclable molded case breaker parts have different properties than the older versions, the redesign is really complicated. In that revision process, mfrs have until August of this year to declare their migration plan, then it must be fully implemented by 2017. Because of the design / testing and listing timelines for things like circuit breakers, they basically have to do it right now. It affects IEC people more than us, so the North American resi products, not sold overseas, were at the bottom of the priority list. But because a lot of the main breakers used in resi panels are shared with resi, industrial and export OEM lines, the change is happening now.

It's going to be a bumpy ride for a few years.
 
Jraef said:
Having worked for Siemens in the past, I'm very familiar with this recurring problem, and why it affects them both. Eaton and Siemens both use the exact same sub component resource (in the Dominican Republic as I recall) for any of the components inside of their breaker product lines, neither of them actually make those parts any longer. Because of that, when that sub component supplier has a problem, both houses of cards collapse. When I worked for Siemens, the issue was China snatching up copper resources and spiking the cost. This resource would hold off on buying copper because their contract prices to Eaton and Siemens were fixed, but the materials were fluctuating too wildly, so they held off on keeping inventory which slowed down the pipeline for both of them.

I'm no longer in that resi product loop, but in general there is now a big shakeup going on in the overall molded case breaker world as everyone scrambles to get ahead of a huge change coming in 2017 to what is called the RoHS rule (Reduction of Hazardous Subtances). A new version was enacted in 2011 that now affects what is called the "end of life" disposal process, requiring that all materials used must be recyclable, including anything plastic. This is forcing CB mfrs to redesign. Because recyclable molded case breaker parts have different properties than the older versions, the redesign is really complicated. In that revision process, mfrs have until August of this year to declare their migration plan, then it must be fully implemented by 2017. Because of the design / testing and listing timelines for things like circuit breakers, they basically have to do it right now. It affects IEC people more than us, so the North American resi products, not sold overseas, were at the bottom of the priority list. But because a lot of the main breakers used in resi panels are shared with resi, industrial and export OEM lines, the change is happening now.

It's going to be a bumpy ride for a few years.
Click to expand...

Excellent explanation! Square D doesn't seem to have the same problem, so I may have to migrate back to them.

Thanks for the info!
 
electricguy61 said:
Excellent explanation! Square D doesn't seem to have the same problem, so I may have to migrate back to them.

Thanks for the info!
Click to expand...
It's probably because Sq D does not share their NA resi main breakers with their export product lines, all of their stuff for the IEC world is Merlin Gerin.

In fairness I should make it clear though that this issue will EVENTUALLY hit us on everything, because there is a slight possibility that NA resi products will end up in the EU on equipment, so all mfrs will be changing. I just think that with Sq D, the issue may take a little longer to impact us here. When it does, most likely Siemens, Eaton and GE will have already solved the problem (because they had to start earlier), so the tables will likely turn.
 
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