Allen Circuit Breakers

[John Vanderlee]

I have an S100 amp that trips circuit breakers, but not all the time, and output wiring is OK. It is NOT the amp. I suspect fatigue on the breaker. The ones Allen uses are almost impossible to find. They HOLD at 1.65 Amps, and should trip at 2.5 Amps. ( According to the spec on the breaker) It's possible to buy 3 Amp panel mount breakers easily, only .5 amp different, OR 2 Amp breakers, thus slightly underrated. Not counting heat loss in Watts, The amp could draw nearly 1 Amp (100W / 120 V = .833 A). Should I go for 2A or 3A breakers? Unless some one has a source for 2.5 A breakers?

Thanks for any info

John

[Admin]

Potentially, the amp could be draw more than 1 Amp as I believe the 100 watt is continuous power. Peak demands could be higher, and you also need to factor in the fact that power supply efficiency is less than 100%. If you want to be on the safe side, try a 2 Amp breaker, but if it were me, I'd probably go with a 3 Amp with the expectation that it would protect against a catastrophic failure in the event of blown output transistors, rectifiers and transformer. Alternatively, you could replace the breaker with a fuse.

[John Vanderlee]

Correct, I qualified my question by negating the heat loss which is a big part of the inefficiency. Catastrophic failure would blow the 3 amp fuse, which really safeguards the environment rather than the amp. Amps are easy to repair or replace, buildings are not!
I was trying to avoid a fuse, as you never have one when you most need it.
Thanks Admin!

[JoelHof]

Mouser and Digi-Key have a bunch of them but they're pretty pricey. Digi-Key is typically cheaper. I get a lot of electronics parts from them ...

https://www.mouser.com/Circuit-Prote...z0x8haZ1yzubxu

https://www.digikey.com/products/en/...=1&pageSize=25