Egis 3201-20 20A Single Pole Circuit Breaker AC/DC

The Egis Mobile Electric 3201-20 is an A-Series single-pole circuit breaker built to protect one 20-amp circuit on your boat. It handles both AC and DC, so it earns its spot whether you're wiring a shore-power branch or a DC feed off the house bank. The white toggle mounts flush in a standard panel and doubles as an on/off switch, which keeps your helm clean and your wiring simple.

What makes this one worth reaching for is the magnetic-hydraulic trip mechanism. A thermal breaker changes its mind depending on how hot or cold the cabin gets. This one doesn't. Its trip point stays consistent from 40 below all the way up to 185 degrees Fahrenheit, so a breaker in an engine room that's baking in July trips at the same current as one in a flybridge console in February. On the water, that predictability matters. You want a breaker that trips when the circuit's actually in trouble, not because the sun's been beating on the dash.

The 3201-20 is rated to 277 volts AC and 80 volts DC. That DC number is the one most boaters care about, and 80 volts covers every common house system, 12-volt, 24-volt, and 48-volt alike. Interrupt capacity is where this breaker really shows its pedigree. It's rated to 5,000 amps at 277 Vac and 1,500 amps at 80 Vdc. If you're running a large paralleled battery bank with a lot of available fault current, that high interrupt rating means the breaker can safely open a dead short instead of welding itself shut. That's the whole point of over-current protection, and a lot of cheaper breakers can't promise it.

Fit is easy. The A-Series body drops into any standard panel cut for A-Series or C-Series magnetic-hydraulic breakers, so if you're replacing a tripped or corroded breaker of the same family, it's usually a straight swap. Egis includes the mounting screws, and the electrical connections use stainless steel self-locking hardware. Stainless matters on a boat. It fights the corrosion that loosens connections over time, and self-locking nuts hold torque through vibration so your terminals stay tight season after season.

Where does it go? Think DC distribution panels, inverter and charger branch circuits, nav electronics feeds, bilge pump circuits, lighting, and accessory runs that pull up to 20 amps continuous. Manual reset means that after a fault, you find the problem, fix it, and flip the toggle back on. No fuses to hunt for in a drawer, no crimping a new one in at 2 a.m. offshore. Just reset and go once the circuit's clear.

It's UL 1077 recognized and rated for 6,000 electrical cycles at full current, so it holds up to years of daily switching. Egis backs it with a 4-year warranty, which tells you what they think of it too. For a company that's been building vehicle and marine electrical gear for over 25 years, that's a fair bet.

One thing to keep straight. This is a single-pole breaker, so it protects one conductor. If you need to break both legs of an AC circuit, you'll want a double-pole unit instead. And size it to your wire, not just your load. A 20-amp breaker belongs on wire rated to carry at least 20 amps for the run length you've got. Match the breaker to the smallest conductor in the circuit and you'll never have a problem.

Bottom line, it's a clean, dependable panel breaker from a name that specializes in this stuff. Whether you're building a new DC panel from scratch or swapping out a breaker that's seen better days, the 3201-20 does its job quietly and keeps doing it. That's exactly what you want from a part you hope you'll never actually see trip.