Electronic Circuit Breaker

[Bob Johnson]

Here is some information:
If you calculate the resistance needed for 30 amps for a 6 and a 12 volt system you get 0.4 ohms for a 12V and 0.2 for 6V. So a dead short across a circuit breaker would require it have those resistance. But that is not how it works. The circuit breaker has a much lower resistance, typicality 0.02 ohms. Thus it will "see" a voltage of 30 X 0.02 = 0.6 volts when it triggers regardless of the overall voltage of the system. The number of watts (power) is what triggers the breaker. In this case it is 18 watts (30A X 0.6V).



Note that when the breaker triggers there is a difference in the "short" resistance for 6V vs 12V. In a 6V system it take a resistance of (6V - 0.6V) / 30 A = 0.18 Ohms for 6V and (12V - 0.6V) / 30 A = 0.38 Ohms for 12V. That would result from a 180 watt load for a 6V system and a 360 watt load for a 12V system. That is where the difference between a 6V and 12V system is seen.




Bob