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Joined: Jul 2002
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I would like to go out on a limb here and say that the whole world should use DIN rail mount equipment.
It is so simple to work with, I mean unless you are dealing with an elderly building that still has HRC fuses or what-not, tear it out and use metric DIN rail stuff.
You can work live on DIN rail stuff, simple as, all the breakers are the same physical size, apart from the width for multi-phase circuits.
No connection issues, just do your terminals up tight and you're done.

Trumpy #220383 12/16/19 01:45 AM
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Originally Posted by Trumpy
I would like to go out on a limb here and say that the whole world should use DIN rail mount equipment.
It is so simple to work with, I mean unless you are dealing with an elderly building that still has HRC fuses or what-not, tear it out and use metric DIN rail stuff.
You can work live on DIN rail stuff, simple as, all the breakers are the same physical size, apart from the width for multi-phase circuits.
No connection issues, just do your terminals up tight and you're done.



I would rather not see DIN rail panels here as standard, DIN rail has it's place & even saved my bacon, but have no desire to see a rule change allowing DIN rail panels.

Last edited by NORCAL; 12/16/19 01:45 AM.
Trumpy #220387 12/20/19 06:59 PM
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Originally Posted by Trumpy
I would like to go out on a limb here and say that the whole world should use DIN rail mount equipment.
It is so simple to work with, I mean unless you are dealing with an elderly building that still has HRC fuses or what-not, tear it out and use metric DIN rail stuff.
You can work live on DIN rail stuff, simple as, all the breakers are the same physical size, apart from the width for multi-phase circuits.
No connection issues, just do your terminals up tight and you're done.


Actually that isn't quite true. As soon as you get to bus bars you're back to type testing and only combining parts from the same manufacturer. Neither the height of devices nor the distance between the terminals and the front of the device are completely standardised, so you can be a few mm off, enough to cause overheating under high load. UK manufacturers also have a whole range of completely incompatible RCBOs that are much taller than standard MCBs, requiring much larger enclosures.

Apart from that I think the great thing with DIN rails is the sheer variety of available devices - MCBs, RCDs, relays, contactors, switches, dimmers, sockets, motor relays, doorbell transformers, doorbells, bus actors, you name it!

And you can always get around the issue with type testing by using wire links in a pinch (replacing an old MCB or RCD that's no longer available).

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Another bit of trivia: the moulded shells of the German FPE MCBs carry an MPAD mark, which was essentially a trading standards system for cast parts, specifying the manufacturer and material type. The material is given as Type 31, which is plain old bakelite. The manufacturer code is TM, which translates as "Kunststoff- und Metallwarenfabrik Johann Kuehnl & Co. K.G., Karlsruhe i.B." (Plastic and Metal Products Johann Kuehnl). The manufacturer code isn't included in any of the lists that float around on the web so that took some digging and asking around.

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Question- why do these German FPEs have a trip coil but not the British versions?

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Originally Posted by WaterIngress
Question- why do these German FPEs have a trip coil but not the British versions?


Probably because the VDE regs. required it, so they couldn't get away without it. These MCBs were quite specifically built to German standards, including the trip curves H (household, very sensitive magnetic trip, 3*In, for TN-C supplies), L (lighting, magnetic trip similar to modern B), both with fairly slow thermal trip, and G (sensitive thermal trip, very slow magnetic trip, for large motors).

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3x? Why so sensitive?

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Originally Posted by WaterIngress
3x? Why so sensitive?

For high-impedance TN supplies apparently, to make sure the MCB trips even if the prospective fault current is quite low. They were phased out some time in the 70s.

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