The Raritan Blog

Understanding Overload Protection in Raritan’s Rack Transfer Switch

David Wood
February 16, 2016

This past week, we opened our mailbag and found the following customer email:

Dear Raritan team,

We mostly love the 16A rated rack transfer switch so far! The physical design made it easy to connect power feeds from the back of the cabinet. The outlet-level metering and switching let us power off development servers no one was using on weeknights and weekends.  But, here’s one thing that wasn’t so great:

We recently experienced a total device failure.  We weren’t sure what it was at first, but quickly realized it was a blown fuse from both the web interface and indicator lamp/alarm on the unit. Once we replaced the fuse the unit continued operating just fine.  But, why is it there in the first place? And why not have a circuit breaker instead of a fuse?

Tl;dr What is the purpose of the fuses located on the inlet side of Raritan’s rack transfer switch and why not have a circuit breaker instead?