Hi

 

I am looking at replacing very old circuit breakers in my DB, I looked online and see that Major Tech Circuit breakers are much cheaper than say CBI. Is Major Tech okay to use or rather stick with CBI or another brand? Any problems with Major Tech quality?

10 minutes ago, Greglsh said:

Is Major Tech okay to use or rather stick with CBI or another brand?

I don't like CBI. Don't ask me why... I'm not even sure myself. For me it is Hager on a budget, and ABB when not on (too much of) a budget.

I would say you need to look at the spec sheets. That lists two numbers, the number of electrical operations, and the number of mechanical operations it is rated for. For example, this is for a random item from an ABB catalogue:

And this is from a Hager one:

In my experience, ABB normally does around double the life of a Hager (this example is weirdly reversed), but even the Hager dwarfs your hardware-store special breaker. I don't know what the Major Tech breakers can do... I can't even find a spec sheet.

So it seems Major-Tech are pretty crappy. 

Source

Mechanical life is only 10000. So half of CBI and a quarter of Hager. 

 

5 minutes ago, profa said:

Mechanical life is only 10000. So half of CBI and a quarter of Hager. 

That's actually better than I expected 🙂

But yeah, Hager isn't priced so much higher that you can make a cogent argument for the cheapie. I pretty much won't touch an AC-DC branded breaker anymore.

2 minutes ago, plonkster said:

That's actually better than I expected 🙂

But yeah, Hager isn't priced so much higher that you can make a cogent argument for the cheapie. I pretty much won't touch an AC-DC branded breaker anymore.

Thanks guys

 

Who sells the Hager's, I am in Durban.

Just now, Greglsh said:

Who sells the Hager's, I am in Durban.

em.co.za

livecopper.co.za.

It is Electro Mechanica, do they sell to the public?

5 minutes ago, Greglsh said:

It is Electro Mechanica, do they sell to the public?

Don't know, I've seen others recommend them, I've not bought from them. But I got good service from livecopper.

I found at least one good use for an AC/DC breaker. Inverter overload tester...

(The dead short current on a 3KVA inverter is only around 30A... even a 10A is enough to take that... and I don't mind burning the contacts to hell...).

9 hours ago, Greglsh said:

Is Major Tech okay to use or rather stick with CBI or another brand?

What is the feeling on Onesto breakers? I have used lots of them without any problems, but I don’t know if I like the new type where they changed the levers. They are my first choice when going for cheapies. 

41 minutes ago, Gerrie said:

Onesto

It seems on par with most cheaper breakers. Website says >10000 operations. The ones I've seen looks better than the ACDC house brand at least.

11 minutes ago, plonkster said:

Onesto

They seem quite sturdy when clipped in on the din rail, also you can put force on the tightening screws which is important to me. I have stripped many other brands even some CBI’s. If you tighten some of the other brands it looks like it’s gonna split in two.

 

Buy the 6ka spec mcb.

My db is Hager only for mcbs and haven’t had any failures.

Bought them from Livecopper but their price increase on Hager is too much. Shop around for the best prices.

But a correctly installed and designed db won’t have any failures as nothing will trip on overload.

Edited August 22, 20196 yr by Johandup