Why must circuit breaker be hooked in series with a line of appliance even though the line of appliances are hooked together in parallel?
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If it’s in parallel it won’t protect the circuit, it would actually be a short circuit.
Basically, it has to be a single point at the start of the circuit, otherwise the circuit can’t be controlled by the circuit breaker.
The circuit breaker is an over-current protection. It shuts off if the current exceeds the rated capacity. Too much power draw and it turns off. It acts as a single _planned_ point of turn-off/ shutdown rather than the too-much-power causing a fire or electrocuting someone in an unexpected time or place. It makes appliances, especially old appliances that unexpectedly break, less dangerous overall.
Generally major appliances in the US have their own circuit breaker. Oven/stove, refrigerator, heating and air, dishwasher and washer and dryer. Then outlets have breakers. You do this for several reason. The main one being if there is a problem with the electricity to or from that appliances it doesn’t effect the other ones. Also some, often the dryer and stove will be on 220 lines so that can’t be parallel with other appliances.
Not sure of the reason but in the 60’s it seemed like fuses burned out with more regularity that breakers get tripped today.
Kirschoff’s current law. The result is the current going through a series circuit is the same across the whole thing.
The breaker’s purpose is to reduce all current to zero. By being placed in series to everything else, when the breaker reduces the current passing through it to zero, it reduces all other current to zero as well.
So like someone else said in America they each have their own breaker, when you refer to parallel and series, I’m guessing you are referring to how multiple appliances are hooked up to one circuit in a parallel and the breaker is series. Another reason that hasn’t been stated is for the over current protection. Take a wall of 120 volt receptacles that are all on the same circuit in parallel, when one of the plugs goes bad or stops working for a reason that isn’t a short or over current, the rest of the plugs keep working, if they were in series when one stops they all stop. Now this is why your breaker is wired in series so when an over current or short happens the breaker shuts everything down instead of continuing to supply power to a malfunctioning device, if not it is very probable that an electrical fire is in your future.
circuit breaker is responsible for maximum current of all appliances hooked together in a circuit
parallel just means same wires are getting split so single circuit can be used by multiple outlets
(voltage stays the same, current gets added)
and the added total should not exceed max amperage of the circuit
so your house could have 200Amp breaker at the main
split into 10 circuits of 20A breakers
and each circuit can run many electrical outlets
divided into sections of the house
when you run space heater + hair dryer at max in the same circuit
that’s about 1500W + 1800W = 3300W/120V = 27.5A
and easily trip one of the 20A breakers
Appliances in parallel: if one appliance fails, the remaining appliances won’t be affected, and can continue operating.
Circuit breaker in series: if the appliances draw too much current, the wire in the wall can melt and start a fire. Easy to just cut current to the whole circuit, instead of needing additional wiring to monitor (or fully power) each outlet or appliance.
A circuit breaker placed in parallel is useless. It would just short-circuit the line and cause itself to trip, but without protecting the rest of the circuit.
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