i have an old FPE panel in my house which is over 100 yrs old,never had a problem with them tripping. there the brown case with a black handle. thanks mxslick for that link very informative + scary!i know about them not tripping because i accidentally cut into one on a 20 amp circuit in a sub panel fed by a 100 amp sguare D , it tripped first. not to mention leaving to check other things. happened to be in the hardware store today so i thought i'd see what they had,the replacements are made by a company called UBI incorporated.a division of contienetal electric.these do trip on a short but don't know about an overload. the reason i say this is i had one on a sewage pump station that smeone cut the plug off of the float cord & put on a male plug on the end then plugged it in.kinda hard to figure what was up until i got my ohmmeter out, then all was clear. asked the homeowner how long had it been this way & he said as long as he could rember.the float was supposed to turn a warning light on to let them no the pump was not running, it did. just not a light!anyway after i sraightned this out all worked well. considering i was standing around a couple of do it yourselfers that had a few too many beers to drink & didn't have a clue as to how close they had come from getting killed! now that's scary!
