Square D homeline breakers

Any one with experience with the Sq D homeline. Son had his panel replaced by an electrician a year ago. On two different circuits, both 20 amp, A table saw trips a 20 amp, and a miter saw( that is rated to work on a 15 a Cir) both trip the breakers regularly. Was wondering if anyone has experience with this before he tries to contact the electrician.

Thanks
 
I have had no issues with them tripping.

I have GFCI breakers in my shop, table saw was tripping and found cord had issues.
 
Homeline is just Square D copying a GE panel. It is the same as a Siemens or GE type breaker. Swap wires with a different circuit and see if it still trips. If not replace breaker.
 
I haven't had any problems with Square D, they are a quality product.

It's not uncommon for a table saw to trip a breaker, especially if it gets in a bind. Look the cords over for shorts or loose where the plug connects or goes into the saw.

Is there anything else on the same circuit? If so, try dedicating the circuits to tools that will only be used independently, never at the same time.

You can also check the wiring in the panel, turn the breakers off and check the screws where the wire connects, check the neutral connections. If you feel comfortable doing it, pull the suspect breaker and look where it connects to the bus bar. Look for signs of overheating, arcing, corrosion. Be careful! The buss bar is hot unless the main is off! If no maim breaker, it can't be turned off unless there is another disconnect or by pulling the meter.
 
I am a believer in Square D "QO" breakers, the homeowner line maybe not so much. I haven't personally used them, but my father-in-law, a retired electrical contractor, advised me I should go with the commercial-quality QO breakers when I rewired my house and garage. He said the homeowner line was, of course, medium duty. Probably good advice considering the one-time initial investment. That said, I suspect the homeowner Square D line should generally be OK for most "homeowner" use, which is their obvious purpose.
 
I've had HOM120 breaker on a circuit with a momentary start surge of 30 amps and it did not trip. So, no complaints. I've got four places with a mix of Homeline and QO breakers from Square D and never had a bad breaker yet. The QOs have the advantage of being certified for DC current so I use them when doing off-grid solar work.
 
Homeline is a lower quality product, compared to QO breakers. That said, perhaps his breaker has been tripped extremely often, and they do wear out to the point of tripping easily- even the QO will do that when used as switches, such as on barn/silo equipment.
 
Who says so? Not the NEC and not the companies who make breakers. Sounds like nonsense to me. I have used panel breakers as shut-off switches for many years and never had a breaker "wear out" from it. I am talking AC current. DC is different thus why many AC breakers are not rated for DC.

NEC 2011
404.11 Circuit Breakers as Switches. A hand-operable circuit breaker equipped with a lever or handle, or a power-operated circuit breaker capable of being opened by hand in the event of a power failure, shall be permitted to serve as a switch if it has the required number of poles.

Circuit Breaker. A device designed to open and close a circuit by nonautomatic means and to open the circuit automatically on a predetermined overcurrent without damage to itself when properly applied within its rating.
 
(quoted from post at 22:58:58 01/30/17) Any one with experience with the Sq D homeline. Son had his panel replaced by an electrician a year ago. On two different circuits, both 20 amp, A table saw trips a 20 amp, and a miter saw( that is rated to work on a 15 a Cir) both trip the breakers regularly. Was wondering if anyone has experience with this before he tries to contact the electrician.

Thanks

Time to check amp draw! Wire size for the saw as well as length needs to be the correct size. Maybe just a loose connection. Check the panel side for discoloration too,

Guido.
 
I think you will find the Square D breakers will trip a lot easier than a GE breaker . Since it is a GE panel [ basically although made by Square D] replace with a 20 amp GE breaker. GE is not known to trip so easily as Square D. Like Guido said an amprobe will tell all .
 
I use square D Homeline breakers for many years. I never had issues with table, radial, or trim saws or small air compressor.

My guess is there are other loads on circuit and saw is overloading it.

Use amprobe and check current. Good amprobes can measure motor starting current.

I have a 4 hp electric chainsaw. It's starting current in 75 amps. Never popped a breaker with chainsaw either.
 
I"ve used the QO breakers in panels that control feeding and manure equipment since about 1977...two Harvestores, stave silo, roller mill, TMR, multiple conveyors. All of these were used continuously til I quit dairying in "01, but continued with some for a couple of years with feeding steers. I did have to replace several during that time, but they were switching often, with morning and evening feeding. Motors up to 10 hp.
 
David G, I am NOT addressing "all" breakers and "all" loads, but in regards to using circuit breakers as switching devices, when it comes to certain loads such as transformer (inductive) fluorescent light ballasts etc. Electrical Construction and Maintenance (EC&M) Magazine and Electrical Expert Mike Holt stated the following in response to this question"


Q. What type of circuit breaker does the Code allow to be used for switching duty of lighting circuits?


A. Circuit breakers used to switch 120V or 277V fluorescent lighting circuits must be listed and marked SWD or HID. Circuit breakers used to switch high-intensity discharge lighting circuits must be listed and marked HID [240.83(D)]. Note: This rule applies only when the circuit breaker is used as the switch. If a general-use snap switch or contactor is used to control the lighting, this rule doesn't apply.

UL 489, Standard for Molded Case Circuit Breakers, permits "HID" breakers to be rated up to 50A, whereas an "SWD" breaker can only be rated up to 20A. The tests for "HID" breakers include an endurance test at 75% power factor, whereas "SWD" breakers are endurance-tested at 100% power factor. The contacts and the spring of an "HID" breaker are of a heavier-duty material to dissipate the increased heat caused by the increased current flow in the circuit, because the "HID" luminaire takes a minute or two to ignite the lamp.

Way back when I was doing industrial electrical design engineering whenever I wanted to specify a circuit breaker used to switch fluorescent lighting circuits I ALWAYS specified SWD breakers. Sure, any old breaker can be used and will "work" to switch a device on and off, but it was my standard practice to use SWD when switching lighting circuits. As always feel free to do it however you please is fine with me, no arguments here.

John T Long retired power distribution electrical engineer and rusty on latest codes so no warranty whatsoever
Mike Holt EC&M
 
Read NEC requirements for circuits requiring SWD or HCR breakers, the the blanket requirements don't apply to everything.
 
Really?? If they are in a location where Arc fault breakers were required you would remove them and replace with standard breakers? If an arc fault breaker is tripping there is a problem.
 
Although Homeline is Square D's homeowner grade line, there's nothing wrong with their quality and I would look elsewhere for the source of your problem. It sounds like you have a voltage drop issue.

It may seem counter-intuitive that voltage drop will cause a breaker to trip. After all, the resistance causing the voltage drop should reduce the amount of current following through the circuit, right? That works for resistive loads, but not for motors. Motors want to operate at their rated speed, and will try to draw as much current as necessary to generate the torque needed to get up to speed. So a little voltage drop causes a reduction in speed which causes a demand for more current which introduces more voltage drop and a further speed reduction and..., well you can see where this is going.

You need to determine for sure you have a voltage drop issue (I'm 99 percent certain that's the case) and identify its source. That is done by monitoring the voltage at the saw under load, compared to the no-load voltage at the same outlet. If the voltage drop is more than a couple of volts, you have a problem.

Are lights dimming on other circuits when the saw is running? If so, the problem is either at the panel or upstream of it. Loose connections to the cables coming into the panel or at the service disconnect can cause a lot of aggravation.

Since this is a retrofit, one thing to be aware of is the possibility of a 20 amp breaker on a 14 gauge circuit. The Homeline panels usually come with a number of 15 and 20 amp breakers, and older homes tend to have a lot of 15 amp circuits. Some "electricians", if they run out of 15 amp breakers, will substitute a 20 rather than run to the store to get a 15.

Even if the circuits in question are 12 gauge, that might not be heavy enough for a long run. You wouldn't be the first woodworker who had to run a dedicated 10 gauge circuit to operate his 20 amp-rated table saw.

It may be you just need to replace all the old outlets. It's a good idea to do this anyway, particularly if they've been "backstabbed" (wires pushed into the holes in the back of the outlet rather than connected to screw terminals). The outlets are probably daisy-chained, so each outlet adds a little voltage drop to the total.
 
Youre most welcome, glad to help. When I practiced power distribution engineering the NEC and Electrical Construction and Maintenance (EC&M) Magazine including at the time the likes of experts like Joe McPartl and Mike Holt were held in high regard BUT STILL PEOPLE ARE FREE TO DO THINGS OTHERWISE even if at our facility we ALWAYS specified SWD breakers for fluorescent light switching. Better safe then sorry was our motto.

John T
 
I bought a new Homeline panel at a garage sale for cheap and used it in my new shop. I had some issues with nuisance trips with higher load tools like my table saw and miter saw but they went away when I replaced the breakers. I can also tell you that while they look the same at a glance not all of the other brand breakers that look the same actually fit correctly in the panel due to some very subtle differences where they attach to the buss. This leaves them sticking out further than the Homeline breakers thus the cover will no longer fit correctly.
 
Back around 1980 I ran a service truck for an electric contractor. One of the customers was a printing and mass-mailing shop. The shop floor had 8' fluorescent lights, that were turned on & off at a GE panel with stab-in breakers.
One day I had to change the guts of that panel because it had burned up because the breakers had become loose on the bus-bars from them being switched every day.
That panel was used only for lighting. I was told that that was not the first time that had happened. So I suggested to them that I put a large relay ahead of that panel, then one switch would turn on all the lights, and the panel would hold up much better.
They had me do that, and were real happy with it. They could turn all the lights with one switch.

Dusty
 

If I were to install a panel that I knew that the breakers were going to be switched frequently, It would be with bolt in breakers.

Dusty
 
What's up with all the talk of using breakers for switches? I seriously doubt the O.P. is turning his table saw on and off at the breaker panel.

The idea his breakers are "worn out" from too many cycles is a bit silly, too. If the only reason they're tripping is because they've tripped too many times before, how did they trip in the first place?
 
I had the nuisance tripping on a 20amp Homeline. Dedicated circuit for a central vacuum, 12 gauge about 40 foot run. About one in ten starts it would trip.

Took the vac to Hoover service center, he tested it for amp draw and did about 50 off-on in front of me. No problems.

Suggested swapping in another breaker, so I did. It was better, but not fixed. Eventually I bought a couple of new breakers and swapped those in until I found one that didn't trip. That was 26 years ago, and it's still working OK.

So SQ D is setting them for a quick trip; probably lawyer advised to do so. For obvious reasons...
 

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