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High price of 600 amp circuit breakers?

S

SQLit

Jan 1, 1970
0
carl mciver said:
| I came into possession of a few used 400-600A circuit breakers. Each
| is the size of a milk jug. While researching prices on them and such
| (they sell for $150-200 on ebay), I learned that some cost many
| thousands of dollars new. I saw numbers from $2,500 and higher.
|
| I am curious just what makes them so expensive. Do they have any
| precious materials inside? Or what?
|
| i

There's a new kind out there now, which is wiping out the demand for the
older style. All amperages of the same body size of breaker are all the
same breaker, with a small module plugged in to control the trip point.
Folks love the low parts count. I've never priced them, but I was impressed
when I first saw 'em.
In that range, there's so few people that need them the economy of scale
keeps the price up, but I imagine that the used prices are really good.
Industrial customers usually don't tend to buy stuff like that used.

Industrial customer do purchase used, sometimes that is the only place they
will get what they need. There is a huge difference in large frame
breakers. Most are rebuildable. There are lots of aftermarket companies that
offer springs and contact kits for a lot of the popular old breakers.
As long as you have the personnel and equipment to do the testing after the
rebuild there is nothing wrong with a 15 year old breaker that is tested
after a rebuild. Most larger cities have several companies that specialize
in just this function. I just sold a bunch of GE Magnablasts and cells to a
factory in the east. Each breaker was produced circa 1977. The are of the
15kv varity and 1200-1600 amp frame. Each breaker weights in at a svelte
2350 pounds. They wanted to do an expansion and did not want to change
breaker types. They will refurbish these and add new trip units.
Installation of the cells will be over their Christmas shutdown. Sure glad
it is outside my service area.

Higher amperage breakers especially the medium voltage types can have lead
times of 20 plus weeks.

We will also be removing ~22 GE 2000kva transformers soon. 12.47kv to 480 or
208 3 phase 4 wire. Can I put you down for a few? Got 3 utility
transformers coming up. 69kv to 12.47kv any one interested? Oil samples
were taken, I do not have the results yet.
 
I

Ignoramus21085

Jan 1, 1970
0
Industrial customer do purchase used, sometimes that is the only place they
will get what they need. There is a huge difference in large frame
breakers. Most are rebuildable. There are lots of aftermarket companies that
offer springs and contact kits for a lot of the popular old breakers.
As long as you have the personnel and equipment to do the testing after the
rebuild there is nothing wrong with a 15 year old breaker that is tested
after a rebuild. Most larger cities have several companies that specialize
in just this function. I just sold a bunch of GE Magnablasts and cells to a
factory in the east. Each breaker was produced circa 1977. The are of the
15kv varity and 1200-1600 amp frame. Each breaker weights in at a svelte
2350 pounds. They wanted to do an expansion and did not want to change
breaker types. They will refurbish these and add new trip units.
Installation of the cells will be over their Christmas shutdown. Sure glad
it is outside my service area.

Higher amperage breakers especially the medium voltage types can have lead
times of 20 plus weeks.

We will also be removing ~22 GE 2000kva transformers soon. 12.47kv to 480 or
208 3 phase 4 wire. Can I put you down for a few? Got 3 utility
transformers coming up. 69kv to 12.47kv any one interested? Oil samples
were taken, I do not have the results yet.

Yeppers, that stuff has a cottage industry around it. Better to pay
$1000 to a rebuilder, than to pay $6,000 for a new one with a MSRP of
$11,000.

If I can sell mine to a rebuilder for $200, I will be happy as a clam.

i
 
C

Chris Lewis

Jan 1, 1970
0
Well, it says that I do not sell bad things by claiming that they are
good things.

It means you're basically honest, but it doesn't mean that you can
reliably assess the condition of these breakers. You can't test them.

Best you can say is "good/clean condition, contacts apparently good,
manual actuator works".

Industrial users of such equipment will not buy such gear. Even a
guarantee is not going to help, because they can't risk it failing and
taking something very expensive with it. Hell, for the most part,
it'll cost them more to install it than you could sell it for.

Rebuilders are your best bet, and they won't pay much.
 
I

Ignoramus21085

Jan 1, 1970
0
It means you're basically honest, but it doesn't mean that you can
reliably assess the condition of these breakers. You can't test them.

Best you can say is "good/clean condition, contacts apparently good,
manual actuator works".

Yep. That's what I will do. I will say something like "Demolition
takeout from a working system. Clean. Checks out with an ohmmeter,
turns on and off with manual switch". Or something like that.
Industrial users of such equipment will not buy such gear. Even a
guarantee is not going to help, because they can't risk it failing and
taking something very expensive with it. Hell, for the most part,
it'll cost them more to install it than you could sell it for.

Rebuilders are your best bet, and they won't pay much.

Well, what would they pay, in your opinion?

i
 
S

SQLit

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ignoramus5533 said:
Yes, that's right. I could screw them to any metal sheet, it seems. I
will double check tonight, they are still in my pickup.

i


Please check the mounts before mounting on a grounded surface. Some of these
breakers have to be put on glastic so the terminals will not arc.
 
S

SQLit

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ignoramus21085 said:
Yeppers, that stuff has a cottage industry around it. Better to pay
$1000 to a rebuilder, than to pay $6,000 for a new one with a MSRP of
$11,000.

The bigger the breaker the less of a muliplyer there is. All depends on the
volume your doing with the supplier.

If I can sell mine to a rebuilder for $200, I will be happy as a clam.

i

What part of the country are you in? Maybe I can give you some numbers or
names that will help in the money mission. You will need to be VERY
specific with these folks.
Model, manufacture, frame size, trip unit/size, mounting, voltage, poles
just to get started. Detailed pictures help as well.
 
I

Ignoramus21085

Jan 1, 1970
0
The bigger the breaker the less of a muliplyer there is. All depends on the
volume your doing with the supplier.
Agreed.


What part of the country are you in? Maybe I can give you some numbers or
names that will help in the money mission. You will need to be VERY
specific with these folks.
Model, manufacture, frame size, trip unit/size, mounting, voltage, poles
just to get started. Detailed pictures help as well.

I am in Northern Illinois. I am going to unload and clean these
breakers and will ptake photos. Some are 600A, some are 400A, some are
motor breakers, etc.

i
 
D

daestrom

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ignoramus5533 said:
I came into possession of a few used 400-600A circuit breakers. Each
is the size of a milk jug. While researching prices on them and such
(they sell for $150-200 on ebay), I learned that some cost many
thousands of dollars new. I saw numbers from $2,500 and higher.

I am curious just what makes them so expensive. Do they have any
precious materials inside? Or what?

You don't mention a lot of details, but in addition to all the other
comments, I would add that you have to remember not all 600A breakers are
the same.

The phase-phase voltage can be different, and more importantly, the
interrupting rating. Depending on the service, it may have to be able to
interrupt short circuit currents in the 10kA range, or as high as 500kA.
Some old units used to have sand-fuses built into them. The breaker would
open for modest faults, but if the fault current was *really* high, the
breaker would just arc/weld until the sand fuses blew. They had a much
higher interrupt rating.

Point is, once you get larger than the average residential service panel,
there is more to a breaker than just the full-load current rating. Inverse
time tripping curves, Very Inverse times, high interruption ratings, even
whether it's meant for AC or DC.

daestrom
 
B

B.B.

Jan 1, 1970
0
[...]
Well, what would they pay, in your opinion?

i

In my limited experience with 'em (worked in a warehouse for a
rebuilder for a summer) it was running marginally better than
by-the-pound scrap prices. Also, one-offs got less than batches.
The guys I worked for were a bunch of assholes. Dunno if that
applies to the industry as a whole, but seemed about par in
Texas/Oklahoma.
 
D

Dimitrios Tzortzakakis

Jan 1, 1970
0
--
Tzortzakakis Dimitrios
major in electrical engineering, freelance electrician
FH von Iraklion-Kreta, freiberuflicher Elektriker
dimtzort AT otenet DOT gr
Ï "Ignoramus5533 said:
I came into possession of a few used 400-600A circuit breakers. Each
is the size of a milk jug. While researching prices on them and such
(they sell for $150-200 on ebay), I learned that some cost many
thousands of dollars new. I saw numbers from $2,500 and higher.

I am curious just what makes them so expensive. Do they have any
precious materials inside? Or what?
Of course not, even if they were made of solid silver they wouldn't be that
expensive.It's their usage destination that makes them expensive.If you have
a load of 600 A then it's most probable that you own a factory and that
breaker will supply something very expensive with electricity, not a kettle
or a tv or a dvd player.And of course the manufacturer will ask more money
from the factory owner than the average housemaid.
 
D

Dimitrios Tzortzakakis

Jan 1, 1970
0
--
Tzortzakakis Dimitrios
major in electrical engineering, freelance electrician
FH von Iraklion-Kreta, freiberuflicher Elektriker
dimtzort AT otenet DOT gr
Ï "Chris Lewis said:
They're basically relatively low demand things used
commercially/industrially, and they're much more rugged than
their residential counterparts.

It takes good design to reliably interrupt a 400-600A circuit without
blowing up the neighborhood. Especially at higher voltages.

If you think that's bad, you should see the breakers they have
to use with higher ampacities and voltages. "air blast arc
suppression" etc. I'm glad we don't have to do that at a mere
15A ;-)
At 15A not, but at what voltage?The average power station pump motor is
rated 1MW power which even at 6.6kV is 140 A.To interrupt that current, you
need either vacuum relays or contacts immersed in oil breakers or SF 6
breakers.Even a simple 16 A domestic breaker is a very sophisticated device,
having contacts made of special alloys, a magnetic and a thermal tripping
devices and an arc extinguisher, to cut of large currents (in the range of
kA).The average factory substation is ~16 A ,medium voltage and you need
special fuses, as big as a human forearm with an interrupting capacity of
250 MVA, for 20 kV line voltage, for such usage.
 
D

Dimitrios Tzortzakakis

Jan 1, 1970
0
--
Tzortzakakis Dimitrios
major in electrical engineering, freelance electrician
FH von Iraklion-Kreta, freiberuflicher Elektriker
dimtzort AT otenet DOT gr
Ï "Chris Lewis said:
Right. Remember also that these things tend to be multiple pole breakers
too. So, trying to see some relationship in cost between one of these
beasties and a single slot 15A residential breaker is bound to fail ;-)
Do you mean, say 2 euros for a 16 A (13 cents each A) and 11000 euros for a
600 A (18.33 euros each A)?But 16 A breakers, of course as a poster
mentioned are produced in batches of millions while 600 A in batches of
hundreds.
Multiple pole breakers are widely used in very high voltages, equal or above
than 220 kV.
 
D

Dimitrios Tzortzakakis

Jan 1, 1970
0
--
Tzortzakakis Dimitrios
major in electrical engineering, freelance electrician
FH von Iraklion-Kreta, freiberuflicher Elektriker
dimtzort AT otenet DOT gr
Ï "Ignoramus5533 said:
I got it. Thanks Chris, Harold, SQLit.

I have a related question. I want to sell them on ebay and would like
to get as much as I can. The obvious things I can do is wipe the dust,
photograph them very well and test them with an ohm meter. Is there
anything else, something unobvious, that I could do?

thanks, as always.
That's right, but I am wondering, who would be buying them?Industrial motors
with a power equal or above than 300 kW usually come cheaper in the 6.6.or
3.3 kV version than the low voltage one, and I can't think of any single
load (or combination of loads) that will draw such a large current.Even if
you have say 1000 computers it would be idiotic to power them from a single
breaker, because if it opens all 1000 comps have a blackout.
 
D

Dimitrios Tzortzakakis

Jan 1, 1970
0
--
Tzortzakakis Dimitrios
major in electrical engineering, freelance electrician
FH von Iraklion-Kreta, freiberuflicher Elektriker
dimtzort AT otenet DOT gr
Ï "Chris Lewis said:
According to Ignoramus5533 said:
I have a related question. I want to sell them on ebay and would like
to get as much as I can. The obvious things I can do is wipe the dust,
photograph them very well and test them with an ohm meter. Is there
anything else, something unobvious, that I could do?

Check for cracks, corrosion or pitting on the connectors. Ensure
that the contacts open/close when you operate the handle.

If you can see/get at the contacts, check them for heavy pitting.
[Sometimes these things have replaceable contacts, so you may
be able to get at them.]

Beyond that, you'd need to test them to see if they trip for
overcurrent. This is absolutely _not_ something you can test
short of having a purpose built lab with a lot of very
expensive gear, least of which being a power supply that can
deliver one heck of a lot of amps. And a shorting switch
that won't explode at, say, 100,000 amps.
Easier would be a dummy load that would draw that amperage at the nominal
voltage of the breaker.
 
D

Dimitrios Tzortzakakis

Jan 1, 1970
0
--
Tzortzakakis Dimitrios
major in electrical engineering, freelance electrician
FH von Iraklion-Kreta, freiberuflicher Elektriker
dimtzort AT otenet DOT gr
Ï "B.B. said:
[...]
Well, what would they pay, in your opinion?

i

In my limited experience with 'em (worked in a warehouse for a
rebuilder for a summer) it was running marginally better than
by-the-pound scrap prices. Also, one-offs got less than batches.
The guys I worked for were a bunch of assholes. Dunno if that
applies to the industry as a whole, but seemed about par in
Texas/Oklahoma.
I think only collectors of electrical equipment would bid for them.
 
D

Dimitrios Tzortzakakis

Jan 1, 1970
0
--
Tzortzakakis Dimitrios
major in electrical engineering, freelance electrician
FH von Iraklion-Kreta, freiberuflicher Elektriker
dimtzort AT otenet DOT gr
Ï "DeepDiver said:
Speaking of which, check out this very cool site:

http://teslamania.delete.org/frames/longarc.htm

In particular, check out the two (large) videos of the HV disconnect
switches opening hot. Very exciting!

You may also be fascinated by the coin shrinking tricks elsewhere on the
author's site.

- Michael
Actually, I've seen the results of a disconnect switch opening not only hot,
but under nominal current.This happened at the utility substation, which
supplies half the city of Iraklion.The said switch was under nominal current
(1500 A at 15 kV) and the shift manager ordered the opening of the switch,
not distributing the current beforehand on another switch or opening the
line circuit breaker.The result was of course a huge arc, that destroyed the
switch, blasted the switch metal cover, blackened all the breaker hall
walls, and burned the eyebrows of the 2 emplyees that were doing the
operation before catapulting them off the hall.
 
D

Dimitrios Tzortzakakis

Jan 1, 1970
0
--
Tzortzakakis Dimitrios
major in electrical engineering, freelance electrician
FH von Iraklion-Kreta, freiberuflicher Elektriker
dimtzort AT otenet DOT gr
Ï "Ignoramus5533 said:
I would understand that, for vacuum units.


I am not sure about interchangeability. My 400-600 A breakers
(Siemens, ITE, Westinghouse etc) simply take 3 wires in and 3 wires
going out. They do not mount on special connector panels, like
residential breakers.

i
Of course they do, but since they are supposed to be the main breaker of a
large panel, they go into a special hole cut into the panel itself.
 
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