Power Cords

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

As long as the breaker panel isn't a Federal Pacific Electric Stab Lok panel.

WA2ISE-

Are there FPE home breaker panels that are/were not the Stab-Lok type? I am curious, because I replaced my FPE panel with a different brand when I rewired this house in 1990. Mainly, I did it because FPE breakers then cost $20 each and the newer/more common brands (Challenger, Square D, etc.) were less than $4 each, so once I knew I wanted more than two new circuits the hardware paid for itself. It will be good to know if I also improved the safety of the house, though. Thanks and 73.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV

WA2ISE-

Are there FPE home breaker panels that are/were not the Stab-Lok type? .... It will be good to know if I also improved the safety of the house, though. Thanks and 73.

I have a "Federal Noark" panel in the house as a subpanel, and it's not the stab-lok type. It appears to be a higher end quality unit, maybe industrial grade. And it did trip on the occasional overload and once I shorted the line and it tripped quickly. Haven't seen any horror stories about it.

Changing out the old FPE panel should increase the safety of your house.

I replaced an old FPE panel with a Square D panel, and I now have lots more spaces for extra circuits. I even ran a 240V 15A circuit to run a few Aussie radios I collected (they run fine on 60Hz, and as they use power transformers, they don't care that it's a pair of 120V's). And I used this old style outlet, which happens to match Aussie plugs


A page of my foreign radio sets http://www.wa2ise.com/radios/forgnr.htm