"Toller" wrote in message
...

"# Fred #" wrote in message
. ..

"frank" wrote in message
news:16513d69be78f7a5d1b2d953b7a4c45d@homerepairli ve.com...
i have a sub panel that in my house tonight when i was watching tv it
shut
off and i smelt some thing burning. i found that all seven breakers in
the
sub panel melted but did not trip and the 30 amp double pole in the main
panel did not trip any reason behind this

If it got that hot in the panel I would think the thermo overload would
have tripped even without current. The 30A main didn't tripped becasue it
didn't see the short, overload or it could be defective. 30A service
means gas range, old house with an old electrical service? Lucky the
house didn't burn down - replacing panels and breakers are cheap.

I have seen panel meltdowns before with molten metal on the ground,
pretty ugly and scary.
I guess!
So what causes a meltdown? I have never heard of it.


It was in larger panels. Three phase, higher voltage, a few thousand amp
main - we call switchboards. As far as I could tell it was a result of an
arching fault, could have been phase to phase or phase to ground.

I had a 15kv class breaker blow up in front of me too. That was a little too
exciting.