What it is and what it does
The Siemens 3VA2163-7MS36-0CC0 is a SENTRON molded case circuit breaker (MCCB) built for starter protection — meaning it's designed to sit ahead of a motor contactor and handle the inrush and overload profile of a motor start, not just a resistive load. It carries a continuous 63 A at 40 °C, and that rating holds flat all the way up to 70 °C without derating, which matters if it's breathing hot air in a sealed panel next to a drive or transformer. Three-pole, so it breaks all three phases on a three-phase motor circuit.
Interrupting capacity — what those numbers mean
This breaker's interrupting capacity is its headline spec: 330 kA at 240 V, 242 kA at 415 V and at 440 V, 187 kA at 500 V, and 3.7 kA at 690 V. Those numbers tell you the maximum fault current it can safely clear at each voltage level. The drop to 3.7 kA at 690 V is typical for a breaker this size — at higher voltages, arc extinction gets harder. For a 480 V panel in North America, you're looking at the 187 kA figure, which covers virtually any industrial service entrance or subfeed. The 330 kA at 240 V means it can sit on a transformer secondary with massive fault potential.
Panel fit and integration
Dimensions: 86 mm deep, 105 mm wide, 181 mm high. That 86 mm depth is shallow enough for a standard 200 mm deep enclosure with room for wiring gutters. The 105 mm width per pole (35 mm per pole) is the standard MCCB footprint — it drops into a panel cutout or mounts on a mounting plate without special bracketry. Includes an undervoltage release as part of the auxiliary release set, which means it can be wired into a safety circuit that trips the breaker on loss of control voltage. Also carries two auxiliary switches for status feedback to a PLC or indicator lamp.
What the starter protection design buys you
Starter protection means the breaker's trip curve is coordinated for motor starting — it handles the 6–8x inrush without nuisance tripping, but still protects against locked-rotor and short-circuit conditions. The minimum setting is 189 A and maximum 945 A on the magnetic trip, which covers motor FLA from roughly 30 A to 150 A depending on the starter selection. No trip indicator and no voltage trigger — this is a straightforward thermal-magnetic breaker, not an electronic one. No communication function and no phase failure detection, so it's a pure protection device, not a monitoring one.
Environmental range and power loss
Operating temperature from -25 °C to 70 °C. Storage from -40 °C to 80 °C. Maximum power loss is 6.5 W — negligible for panel heat calculations, but worth noting if you're tallying a dense cabinet. No ground-fault monitoring version — this is a straight MCCB, not a GFCI breaker.