High price of 600 amp circuit breakers?

[Ignoramus5533]

I actually have a good reputation, 300+ 100% positive ebay feedback.

And it is not because I never screw up. I do screw up from time to time, but I make it right afterwards.

I will be elated if, say, I get $150 apiece. That would be many times over what I paid for them. I do hope to get $180-200 apiece, which is in line with recent ebay sales.

If I sell these breakers separately, I can give buyers a 5 day right of return, they pay shipping. If I sell to dealers, all in one lot, I would give them no warranty. They are dealers and know what they are doing.

i

[carl mciver]

There's a new kind out there now, which is wiping out the demand for the older style. All amperages of the same body size of breaker are all the same breaker, with a small module plugged in to control the trip point. Folks love the low parts count. I've never priced them, but I was impressed when I first saw 'em. In that range, there's so few people that need them the economy of scale keeps the price up, but I imagine that the used prices are really good. Industrial customers usually don't tend to buy stuff like that used.

[Ignoramus5533]

The new ones are the one with a little thing in the middle with tyhe amp number, that is separate from the case, right? Like a little depressed button.

They could easily sell for $150-200, it seems, at least a half of wat I have if not more. Gotta look at them more closely.

i

[anoldfart2]

You should look at this site. Talk about high powered breakers, and this one failed. The movie is totally awesome.

Click on the MPEG video movie titled "NEW MPEG of a 500 kV disconnect switch, one phase opens hot!"

[Chris Lewis]

According to DeepDiver :

I've seen those. Ouch!

[Chris Lewis]

According to Ignoramus5533 :

Yes, but does that feedback say you're a reliable supplier of useable/working high amp breakers? _That's_ what's meant by "good reputation" in this context. eBay reputation is somewhat irrelevant in this context.

[Ignoramus21085]

Well, it says that I do not sell bad things by claiming that they are good things.

i

[SQLit]

Industrial customer do purchase used, sometimes that is the only place they will get what they need. There is a huge difference in large frame breakers. Most are rebuildable. There are lots of aftermarket companies that offer springs and contact kits for a lot of the popular old breakers. As long as you have the personnel and equipment to do the testing after the rebuild there is nothing wrong with a 15 year old breaker that is tested after a rebuild. Most larger cities have several companies that specialize in just this function. I just sold a bunch of GE Magnablasts and cells to a factory in the east. Each breaker was produced circa 1977. The are of the

15kv varity and 1200-1600 amp frame. Each breaker weights in at a svelte 2350 pounds. They wanted to do an expansion and did not want to change breaker types. They will refurbish these and add new trip units. Installation of the cells will be over their Christmas shutdown. Sure glad it is outside my service area.

Higher amperage breakers especially the medium voltage types can have lead times of 20 plus weeks.

We will also be removing ~22 GE 2000kva transformers soon. 12.47kv to 480 or

208 3 phase 4 wire. Can I put you down for a few? Got 3 utility transformers coming up. 69kv to 12.47kv any one interested? Oil samples were taken, I do not have the results yet.

[Ignoramus21085]

Yeppers, that stuff has a cottage industry around it. Better to pay $1000 to a rebuilder, than to pay $6,000 for a new one with a MSRP of $11,000.

If I can sell mine to a rebuilder for $200, I will be happy as a clam.

i

[Chris Lewis]

According to Ignoramus21085 :

It means you're basically honest, but it doesn't mean that you can reliably assess the condition of these breakers. You can't test them.

Best you can say is "good/clean condition, contacts apparently good, manual actuator works".

Industrial users of such equipment will not buy such gear. Even a guarantee is not going to help, because they can't risk it failing and taking something very expensive with it. Hell, for the most part, it'll cost them more to install it than you could sell it for.

Rebuilders are your best bet, and they won't pay much.

[Ignoramus21085]

Yep. That's what I will do. I will say something like "Demolition takeout from a working system. Clean. Checks out with an ohmmeter, turns on and off with manual switch". Or something like that.

Well, what would they pay, in your opinion?

i

[SQLit]

Please check the mounts before mounting on a grounded surface. Some of these breakers have to be put on glastic so the terminals will not arc.

[SQLit]

The bigger the breaker the less of a muliplyer there is. All depends on the volume your doing with the supplier.

What part of the country are you in? Maybe I can give you some numbers or names that will help in the money mission. You will need to be VERY specific with these folks. Model, manufacture, frame size, trip unit/size, mounting, voltage, poles just to get started. Detailed pictures help as well.

[Ignoramus21085]

Agreed.

I am in Northern Illinois. I am going to unload and clean these breakers and will ptake photos. Some are 600A, some are 400A, some are motor breakers, etc.

i

[daestrom]

You don't mention a lot of details, but in addition to all the other comments, I would add that you have to remember not all 600A breakers are the same.

The phase-phase voltage can be different, and more importantly, the interrupting rating. Depending on the service, it may have to be able to interrupt short circuit currents in the 10kA range, or as high as 500kA. Some old units used to have sand-fuses built into them. The breaker would open for modest faults, but if the fault current was *really* high, the breaker would just arc/weld until the sand fuses blew. They had a much higher interrupt rating.

Point is, once you get larger than the average residential service panel, there is more to a breaker than just the full-load current rating. Inverse time tripping curves, Very Inverse times, high interruption ratings, even whether it's meant for AC or DC.

daestrom

[B.B.]

[...]

In my limited experience with 'em (worked in a warehouse for a rebuilder for a summer) it was running marginally better than by-the-pound scrap prices. Also, one-offs got less than batches. The guys I worked for were a bunch of assholes. Dunno if that applies to the industry as a whole, but seemed about par in Texas/Oklahoma.