General

All electrical circuits are protected against excessive loads which might occur because of shorts or overloads in the wiring system. Such protection is provided by a fuse or circuit breaker. A short may cause a fuse to blow or a circuit breaker to open.

A Circuit Breaker is a protective device designed to open the circuit when a current load is in excess of rated breaker capacity. If there is a short of other type of overload condition in the circuit, the excessive current will open the circuit between the circuit breaker terminals.