
A circuit breaker can be used and an ON/OFF switch. Some fuses offer an external fuse blown indication. Circuit breakers have external status indication. This dual trip-curve feature of a circuit breaker makes them unique compared to fuses.
A fuse does not offer magnetic protection, only thermal.(Despite the instructions from the manufacturer NOT to replace a fuse under power.) There are some new busbar miniature circuit breaker systems that are designed to have the breakers replaced under power, but adoption has not been wide spread. A fuse can arc, if replaced under power.
To truly test a fuse, it would need to be destroyed in the process.
Circuit breakers can be tested for proper operation. What are the benefits of a circuit breaker, over a fuse? Even the simplest circuit breaker is more complicated than the most complicated fuse. If one was the runaway winner for all applications, we would know by now.Ī circuit breaker is an electromechanical device. So, which is it? After reading a lot of literature on both sides of the argument, the answer is both, or neither. And, if you read the literature from a company that makes CBE’s (Circuit Breakers for Equipment), the circuit breaker is the best choice. Civil War reconstruction era, which one is better? If you read the literature from a company that primarily makes electrical fuses for industrial applications, the fuse is a superior solution. With both of these types of circuit protection being around since the post-U.S. (Thomas Edison must have gotten the idea to patent the fuse after watching all of those early light bulb filaments melt before his eyes.) Louis François Clément Breguet pioneered the use of fuse devices to protect telegraph wires from lightning strikes as far back as the 1860’s. Thomas Edison patented a circuit breaker design in 1879, eleven years before his fuse patent, even though the use of fuses predates that. If you think that the fuse predated the circuit breaker by decades, you would be right, sort of. Over 100 years later, fuses are still used to protect electrical wiring and equipment from damage due to surges and overload conditions. Thomas Edison patented a fuse for his electrical distribution system in 1890.