Electrical Question: Trip-Free vs Non-trip-free breakers

[un2xs]

For the electricians out there, I am trying to find some information. I am seeking a way to keep emergency light breakers from being accidentally turned off in an often accessed breaker panel. Until yesterday I had never heard of trip-free breakers vs non-trip-free breakers.

- When are non-trip-free circuits breakers used?
- Are non-trip-free breakers ever mandated by code?
- Are trip-free breakers allowed on a circuit with emergency lights?
- How do you tell the difference between trip-free and non-trip-free breakers?
- When was the code for these established?
- When did trip-free breakers become the standard vs just being optional?

I may have other questions later.

Thanks!

[XEMON]

Let me start by saying I am not a certified electrician, I am just sharing my experience with industrial systems.

As a rule of thumb I would stick with trip free. But for emergency lights, check the NFPA70E, it will have everything you need to know.

If you check the spec sheet for the breaker there should be a description of the behaviour.

Trip free are just safer, they avoid "Joey" go on the panel and hold the breaker up ...

but before we can get you some pertinent information:
What's you application? Industrial or residential?
what are you trying to do?

Best bet might be to get a local certified electrician, the responsibility/liability will be on them to have the system safe and up to code. But this might be expensive.

[Marauder_Pilot]

I can't speak with authority about the NEC in the USA, but in the CEC, in general non-trip-free breakers are only allowed for very specific purposes, mostly fire safety. I usually only see them on breakers controlling stuff like fire alarm panels, sprinkler compressors and such. There are other applications, but in general they should only be used if supply of electrical power to a certain appliance in an emergency is literally a matter of life and death. Since emergency lights are intended to be operated off their own power supply in an emergency situation, they generally don't count.

HOWEVER, what you SHOULD get in this situation is a breaker lock-on. It's essentially the opposite of a lockout/tagout breaker lock, it'll be a little mechanical latch that's specific to your type of panel that will lock the breaker in the on position. Again, these are generally seen for fire alarm equipment but I've installed them on plenty of equipment that can't be shut off.

A breaker lock and a trip-free breaker will keep your emergency lights on and running, but will still trip in the case of a fault condition.

[un2xs]

Class A occupancy... think high school type bench seats. There are no contactor circuits for the lights... lights are cycled with breakers instead of normal switches. In the past circuit's with emergency lights would frequently be turned off, too. To solve the problem, thumb screw LOTO held these breakers knobs in the ON position. A new electrician indicated the breakers would not trip if held ON. And... he just MAY be correct.

I would not ask the LOTO to be reinstalled unless the breakers can be verified as trip-free. (I didn't even know until yesterday that there were TRIP-FREE and NON-TRIP-FREE breakers.)

What I want/need is for the emergency lights to only and always come on in the event of power outage. I am trying to find the most cost effective solution to a problem I know is going to start occurring again.

[Marauder_Pilot]

Honestly the right answer is hiring an electrician to install some lighting contactors and a master switch for them. Breakers aren't rated to be used as light switches. It's fine if you want to kill the breaker to fix something, or to deenergize something a few times a years for a long period of time, but if those breakers are being toggled several times a day you're going to stretch the bimetal strips out of spec over time which, if you're lucky, will just keep them from turning back on one day, but you also stand a strong chance of them not tripping when they're supposed to. Doubly so if it's a Federal Pioneer panel, which are SUPER common in large commercial applications from before the '90s.

A bank of lighting contactors really isn't that expensive or time-consuming to install, especially if everything's located in one panel room. I've done similar stuff and it's been like a half day job in some cases.

[XEMON]

What you want to do is really simple, but making it to code is a different story ...

A simple relay controlled by main power and the light connected to an independent power source and going through the NC side of the control relay will do what you need.
Is it up to your local code? I have no idea.

PS: I can hand draw you the circuit if you need.

[Marauder_Pilot]

I believe he's talking about the standard self-contained emergency lighting units you see in most large buildings that either have one battery per light or a few battery packs powering a handful of remote heads. I'm guessing the problem is that someone turns off that breaker, which makes the packs turn on when they shouldn't be on.

[un2xs]

Marauder is correct in thinking that the emergency light circuits supply battery backup devices... bugeyes and exits. Also correct is that without LO on them the circuits were often turned off in the past.

[XEMON]

Got it, my bad ...

What about having the control for the emergency lights in a separate locked cabinet?
If you already have all the components, it's just a matter of moving them around ...