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Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 9,931 Likes: 34
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If you put a 25a load on a 14ga circuit for a short time nothing bad should happen if the breaker didn't trip. Particularly true if this was just a duplex on a pigtail, connected directly to the breaker. Were you trying to test the building wiring or just the breaker?
Greg Fretwell
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Joined: Dec 2001
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You might be able to test the overload protection by connecting directly to the breaker, but there is no safe way to field test the short circuit protection.
Even if you series wired say a 15 amp breaker and a 20 amp fuse and imposed a dead short you might get a nice arc setting the house on fire or killing you. Or you might give the breaker just that last kick it needed to fail next time it should trip...
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Joined: Aug 2005
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You know, they could have at least used a 15 amp fuse-link, it probably would've been cheaper, and it would've actually been a relitively safe product (assuming the on.off switch worked?)
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Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 2,498
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From looking at this I'd guess the switch does not work at all - so it's easy to spot the issue.
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Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 794 Likes: 3
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Looking at the upper left corner in that picture of it, those look to be switch contacts. Essentially, if true, it's just a light switch. Then it would seem to be functional when you want to shut a circuit down.
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Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 9,931 Likes: 34
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I have been thinking about your breaker tester. The problem is how do you bleed off all the energy your test uses?
That is why I suggested the hair dryers. Certainly a "real" tester would be packaged differently with a good amp meter and maybe even an onboard computer, storage, test protocols with USB and printer interface but it would still have a lot of toaster wire and a big fan.
Greg Fretwell
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Posts: 264
Joined: February 2013
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