I had a break in my schedule, so I filled the water tunnel to see how the Eaton breaker was doing.
I set up the controls to run a typical experiment.
The first observation is that the Eaton breaker didn't register any current draw on the meter below 1 amp.
The usual way of controlling the motor is by setting the motor control frequency as a percentage of maximum.
My starting frequency for an experiment is around 4hz and the maximum is around 25hz.
The Eaton breaker didn't show 1A until approx. 15hz, and only 2.3A at 25hz, so not a lot of resolution for our experiments.
I set the motor control at 30Hz - way over my normal range.
The tank was half full so the flow was approx. 0.75 m/s. That's fast flowing water.
The Eaton was showing only about 3A per phase.
The Eaton breaker is rated at 60A, and I'm only using 2 or 3A, it's much more than I need for this equipment.
I'll probably set a trip level at 4 or 5A and see if I can get it to trip. I'm a little worried about making a big mess if I'm running over a meter/second
flow rate and abruptly stopping the motor. The tsunami wave might make it over the top of the glass.
The other issue with the breaker is the coin battery. Since the main disconnect is off when the water tunnel is not being used, the coin battery will go dead after a time.
If you were monitoring critical equipment and needed to determine maintenance times based on changes in current draw, this breaker would be very helpful.
I think my machine might be too simple to be able to fully utilize the features of this breaker.
Scott
