So you’ve been troubleshooting some device or fooling around with a mains circuit and pop, goes the breaker. Well OK, let’s discuss a few ways of dealing with this situation.
Here are some common methods:
- Fuses
- Ballasts
- Secondary, lower rated breaker
- Dedicated line
The methods explained:
Fuses
The first and probably simplest method is to use fuses, however it soon becomes apparent that it’s also an expensive idea. Fuses should be, in my opinion, one of the last defences.
Another problem comes from an improperly wired plug (or non polarized as is the case in some countries) then you could have an open fuse by the netural side, but your device could still be at live potential! — This could be lethal.
So even if you’ve got an open fuse, don’t assume it’s safe to get your paws in there just yet, unplug it first. Likewise with power switches, if they aren’t bipolar then don’t assume, be smart.
Ballasts
As simple to implement as a fuse, but it won’t cut-out if you short the line, it will just provide whatever current the ballast lets through.
A ballast can be inductive or resistive, typically you’d want to use a resistive ballast, examples are room heaters, incandescent light bulbs, etc.
The down-side here is that if you were to use a ballast big or small enough, you can actually cause more damage with it than without it.
Explanation:
A “big” ballast (low value, allows for a lot of current) will most likely damage your device in case of a dead short, because it will continue to use your device as the current path, whereas a breaker would most likely trip open very quickly. Now if your device failed short, something already went wrong, but if you keep powering this device, chain reactions can occur and more damage can be caused. Because of this, sizing the ballasts properly is very important.
A “small” ballast (high value, allows for very little current) will display a noticeable resistive divider behavior between itself and the load, this means that the load (device) will see a lower voltage and this can cause trouble in certain cases, for example poorly (or cheaply) designed switch mode power supplies can have it’s switching / rectifier sections fail due to over-current (lower voltage forces the controller to use a higher duty cycle to compensate for this, thus longer “ON” times are seen). This can actually lead to yet another chain-reaction event.
Remember, as the smps starts up it needs to charge the input filter capacitors and this is a relatively heavy load, at this stage the voltage on the power supply may be way below it’s minimum specified rating thanks to your ballast.
Secondary breaker
You can wire up a box with an inlet and an outlet with a small breaker in between, typically breakers have a higher trip current than rated to allow for high inrush currents as seen on inductive loads such as motors, etc. So definetly do take this into consideration.
One issue however is that lower rated breakers can either be harder to find or more expensive, so keep that in mind as well.
Dedicated line
Having a dedicated line just for testing devices is ideal, if you add a secondary breaker and a properly sized ballast where applicable, you’ll never have to worry about blacking out or damaging something ever again.
You can add your own ground fault (switchable in and out) as well as residual current devices, etc. I would even suggest implementing phase indicators like you’d find on most properly installed residential panels.
It should be clear that a combination of all methods can only be ideal if it suits your needs, so there is no definitive answer here. Investigate, experiment and figure out what’s best for you.
Cheers.