Who invented circuit breaker

The invention of the circuit breaker is credited to Carl Wilhelm Siemens, a German engineer, in 1867. Siemens was working for the Siemens & Halske company, a German electrical engineering firm, when he developed the first practical circuit breaker.

Siemens' design used a spring-loaded contact that would trip and open the circuit when the current exceeded a certain threshold. This was a significant improvement over earlier designs, which relied on fuses that would melt or burn out when the current exceeded a certain level.

However, Siemens' design was not without its limitations. It was prone to false tripping, and the spring-loaded contact could be damaged by repeated use.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, other inventors and engineers made improvements to the circuit breaker design. One notable example is the work of Charles F. Scott, an American engineer who developed a circuit breaker with a magnetic trip mechanism in the early 1900s.

Scott's design used a magnetic coil that would trip and open the circuit when the current exceeded a certain level. This design was more reliable and less prone to false tripping than earlier designs.

In the mid-20th century, the development of electronic trip units and microprocessors further improved the performance and reliability of circuit breakers. Today, circuit breakers are an essential component of electrical power distribution systems around the world, and are used to protect people, property, and equipment from electrical hazards.

Here's a timeline of some key milestones in the development of circuit breakers: