Product Brochure
Three Times the Life — 
Three Times the Value
The performance of safety switches is important 
to the safe and protable operation of many 
industrial settings. In addition, requirements from 
organizations such as OSHA have increased the 
use of safety switches in many commercial and 
industrial facilities.
The useful life of a safety switch is less than two 
years based on NEMA
®
 KS-1 life test requirements, 
in lockout/tag out applications where a switch 
is operated just once per hour, 24 hours a day, 
seven days a week. For switches in these high-use 
applications, durability is key.
Square D safety switches provide signicantly 
higher levels of mechanical endurance than NEMA 
KS-1 require. This translates to improved reliability 
in a production environment. In fact, the standard 
for the design life of Square D F-Series safety 
switches is a minimum of three times the NEMA 
requirement. No competitor comes close to the 
performance offered by Square D safety switches.
Performance
Designed for the 
Best Performance
A key performance benet of the Square D safety 
switch is its ability to break load. A locked motor can 
draw six to eight times motor full-load current. In an 
emergency situation, it’s important to have a switch 
with enhanced load break capability. A key element 
of Square D safety switches is their blade and jaw 
construction designs built to easily manage heavy 
motor loads and arc interruptions.
3
(1)
 Life determination based on 50,000 operations for Square D F-Series 30 A and 15,000 operations for 
competition. Actual number of operations will vary based upon electrical load, duty cycle, and environmental 
conditions.
(2)
 Does not include cost of lost productivity. Switch cost replacement: labor = 2 hour @ $45/hour cost of 
switch @ $100. Maximum usable life of switch assumed to be 20 years.
Potential Cost Avoidance Due to Square D Switch Life
Operations 
of switch/
8-hour shift
Operations 
per year in 24/7 
environment
Life of 
Square D switch 
in years 
(1)
Life of 
competitive 
switch in years 
(1)
Cost avoidance 
by using 
Square D
 (2)
1
1,095 45.7 13.7 $190
2
2,190 22.8 6.8 $380
3
3,285 15.2 4.6 $570
4
4,380 11.4 3.4 $760
5
5,475 9.1 2.7 $950








