13 Comments

My thought would be to steer clear of a single contact breaker that is capable of pulling that many amps. That one in the picture could pull up to 45 amps. I would rather see a double on lighting circuits and keep the 30 amp main seperate.

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We see a lot of that here in the desert, it is almost always a Siemans panel with twins (but not always) and most of the time it is at or near the air conditioning breaker. Even though AC units are not really considered a continuous load because they cycle on and off, in the desert they can sometimes run for many hours without cycling.

Once a breaker melts like that I have found that you can no longer use that bus stab or it will only happen again. This is on aluminum busses with tin plating, once the tin plating is damaged the stab is finished.

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I have used a product called Cool Amp on copper contact surfaces that have lost their silver coating. Not sure if it will adhere to aluminum but could be worth a try.

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This is a huge problem for the RV forum i am on. A siemans panel with a 30/15 twin breaker, the 30 being the main. Many have done preventive replacement with a single 30 in that spot and the twin in another available slot with only the 15 hooked up. Probably a half dozen burnt up dist panels have happened.

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Do you have any pictures you can email me? I wonder if yearly maintenance with contact cleaner would help?

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Yep can do.

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Can’t seem to do a photo here? Where to send it?

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Please email any pictures and documentation to jmichaelsokol@icloud.com

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I have seen it twice, once in an old Federal Pacific panel that was soon replaced and once with a counterfeit Square D breaker that did not trip

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How do you know it was counterfeit?

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This was many years ago, and was a QO breaker not a homeline. inspection of the breaker the first thing that stood out was the rating of the breaker was not painted on however it was molded in, it did not have Square D molded in the side of the breaker. We took the breaker to the electrical distributor that we did most of our business with and they declared it counterfeit.

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I guess they will counterfeit anything

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Had a 15 amp breaker get hot enough to make the plastic around it start to melt. Replaced breaker after cleaning contacts. 2014 Itasca Cambria 27K. Was right after I bought it in 2022.

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