Re: Switch

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Jim Lux by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>

Other than the fact that circuit breakers don't have the life rating (in
terms of number of operations) that switches do, because they're just not
designed for repetitive operation.  A decent switch should be good for a
million operations. A standard electrical panel circuit breaker will
probably show signs of wear out after a few hundred operations.  Circuit
breakers designed for use as front panel controls (i.e. switch/circuit
breakers) would be an exception.

You may think that 1000 operations is a lot, but, it really isn't.  I used
to work for a place that put cheap switches into a product they sold, and
got a lot of returns.  Turns out, the switch was only rated for a life of
10,000 operations, and the users would turn the thing on and off many times
(dozens) in a day. Doesn't take long to rack up a thousand operations at
that rate.


Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
<Jbryantmou-at-aol-dot-com>
> 
> Does it have to be a "switch" necessarily.  Would a circuit breaker with
> that rating work just as well.  For 240, they usually take two 120's and
> pin them together so when one is tripped, it trips the other one as well.
> There's no reason (functionally) that you couldn't use them as a switch.