Stepping down 50 or 30 amp service to 15 amp service

[TimeOutside]

Anyway, forget all about it for the moment and have a great time in Nashville, I bet it will be fabulous!

Nashville has been great so far. Today is the big tourist day for us. I know we will have fun. My wife and I have done most of it before. Now we're just adding her best friend.

But I have an idle moment while the girls are getting ready.

I'm only familiar with breaker cabinets that have bus bars. Would these two parts be what I should order for this application? Then just attach the incoming hot lead to the top and bring it out at the bottom? If not, what should I get and how do I wire it?

Thanks,
Andrew

1.

https://a.co/d/c4rSoTV

2.

Amazon.com

 

[Avo Mk8]

Nashville has been great so far. Today is the big tourist day for us. I know we will have fun. My wife and I have done most of it before. Now we're just adding her best friend.

I'm jealous. Have a ball!

Would these two parts be what I should order for this application?

The breaker you've chosen is type C which trips between 5 and 10 times the rated current (referring to magnetic trip)
I would choose at least a type B which would trip at 3 to 5 times rated current.
Or even more sensitive a type A which would trip by twice rated current, but might mean nuisance tripping.
If you can find a similar breaker type B or A that would be preferable.
We normally feed power into the bottom of the breaker and bring it out at the top, but you can arrange the cables in the enclosure to come out both at the top, or bottom, or both as suits the installation.
The enclosure is fine.

Just for reference: What are the Differences between A, B, C and D Miniature Circuit Breakers? - https://asbeam.com/news/miniature_circuit_breaker_type-cn.html

 

[TimeOutside]

If you can find a similar breaker type B or A that would be preferable.

I found a b-type breaker. (Amazon.com - https://a.co/d/b9rCIgi) Is this one correct?

But I'm puzzled. Will it trip at 13.5A (10 x 135%) or 20-30A (2 to 3 times rating)? Or is it somehow both, each under a different condition?

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[Avo Mk8]

I found a b-type breaker. (Amazon.com - https://a.co/d/b9rCIgi) Is this one correct?

But I'm puzzled. Will it trip at 13.5A (10 x 135%) or 20-30A (2 to 3 times rating)? Or is it somehow both, each under a different condition?

Thanks,
Andrew

Hi Andrew
That's for DC solar panels, not AC. It's 16A not 10, and it shows type C on the front. You only need a single pole one.

These circuit breakers contain two mechanisms to trip them.
There is a thermal trip that is basically a bimetallic strip warmed by the current passing through, so when that gets to 135% of the rated current, it trips the breaker. But the characteristic is a slow response, as the heating takes seconds or minutes depending on the amount of overload. So that stops cables melting etc. under sustained slight overload.
Then there is also a magnetic trip like a solenoid, where, when the current is bigger (that's the 3 to 5 times overload), the electromagnetic field is strong enough to trip the switch, which it does in milliseconds. That's to stop a big bang or fire when there's a short circuit.

I guess the ideal for protection of the Jackery would be a 10A fuse, but carrying round a box of those, and fiddling around replacing them would be a pain, so a breaker is the next best thing. But it comes with compromises. Electronic components have got more robust during my lifetime, but they are generally not good at handling transient overloads, so the Jackery may be vulnerable to overload. It depends on how robust their overload protection is, and whether your installation might create any transient spikes on being connected or disconnected. Fundamentally you have an inverter that is underpowered for the potential load it might encounter. I know you don't ever intend to overload it, but potentially there is that possibility. If there wasn't, I wouldn't be suggesting the breaker, but even with it, there is always the possibility of failure.

Personally I would be buying the breaker from a reputable electrical distributor in the US, not necessarily from Amazon.
Just been having a look on Amazon, and I see the problem finding a B curve breaker. You need something like this (but available!) sorry - link doesn't work, so posted pic below instead!

And sorry to sound a bit blunt, but please do your own research. This forum is not supposed to give step-by-step guidance, and I don't want to get too close to that scenario I'm afraid.

 

[TimeOutside]

Lots of info...

Thanks again.

Looking into it, it seems that the breaker panels in U.S. homes pretty much all employ 15-amp C-curve breakers for the 15-amp household circuits. Obviously, the Jackery is intended to be plugged charged from one of these circuits. So, protecting it with a 10-amp B-curve breaker should be much more than adequate.

Short of getting an electricians license, I'm not sure what research I can do on my own. Until this thread, I had no idea of breaker classes, the different characteristics, etc. I didn't know what I didn't know. Getting input on each step and component, to assure it is correct and safe seems to be a must for an electrical DIY 120VAC project. But anyway, I believe I have what I need to proceed.

Thank you again for all the assistance and education.
Andrew

PS. We had a blast in Nashville.