Motor Starters

Manual starters are used to manually start three-phase motors using an electromechanical switch which, when activated, will open or close contacts to start or stop the motor. Low voltage protection, which prevents the motor from automatically restarting after a power failure, is usually not possible with manual starters. Therefore, they are better suited for smaller loads where low voltage protection is not needed.

Combination starters contain the motor starter, a disconnection device and a short-circuit protection device in a single enclosure. This provides an added level of protection from electrical faults that can cause motor overheating and damage.

Non-reversing starters or across the line starters, are used with three-phase motors and contain only one contactor. The contactor opens and closes the power circuit to turn the motor on and off.

Reversing starters are used with three-phase motors and contain two motor contactors, instead of just one contactor. While one contactor is used to open and close the power circuit to turn the motor on and off, the second contactor is used for forward and reverse motor direction control.

Hybrid motor starters use solid-state semiconductor switches to start and stop motors. Because the semiconductor switches are non-mechanical, they can achieve up to ten times as many switching operations as their mechanical counterparts.