Mikepier wrote:
I am renovating a kitchen in an apartment building in which all of the
units have Federal Pacific panels ( I know, that's a whole different
topic, the building owners are well aware of the issues with them) .
I would like to add another circuit to the panel, there is room. The
problem is do they still make replacement or aftermarket breakers for
these panels? The other option I have is to use a 2 pole breaker that
was for a 220V A/C that is not used anymore, but do I , or can I,
physically cut the pin that joins the 2 breaklers so each can operate
seperately?

As several people have indicated, a 2 pole breaker has a common trip.
Cutting the handle tie is not likely to change that. Modifying an FPE
breaker is not a good idea.

One of the failures of FPE breakers is if there is overcurrent on a 2
pole breaker, but the current is not the same on both poles, the breaker
can jam and never trip. Using poles of an FPE 2 pole breaker for other
than a 240 V load is not a good idea.

Information on jamming comes from very limited testing done for the
Consumer Product Safety Commission. I don't think breakers above 40A
were tested. One wonders about service breakers with overload on one leg.

A couple of links for FPE info:
http://www.inspect-ny.com/fpe/fpepanel.htm
when I last looked a lot of the information was based on CPSC tests

http://www.codecheck.com/pdf/electrical/240overcurrent/FPE%20Article%20from%20DH%20-%20Nov2003.pdf

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