Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
Yes the breaker is a thermal device so when the wire heats up, some of that heat is conducted to the breaker and that adversely affects the trip point. Once cool, it returns to normal operation. A trip uses the same procedure as the red button on top of the breaker, so it is not a requirement to change out a breaker once it trips. Otherwise you would have to change it out every time you use it.
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While you're right that tripping the breaker once won't make it unusable (IE, you can still turn the robot on with a breaker that has tripped), it has been observed by my team, team 254, 67, 971, 1678 and many many others that breakers that have tripped before trip at much lower currents the second time around. The reason people are telling saying to throw away after they have tripped once is because they are much easier to trip again, not because they are literally unusable. If you trip a breaker once, it will trip at a lower amperage from then on. We've also observed that different breakers trip at different current levels, but our evidence for this is only really anecdotal.