Thread: Fuses, Fuses, Fuses!

Ouch, that is an expensive oversight or lack of good judgment.

That's gonna cost; I've seen dashboards in the same condition as a result of to small of a gauge wire.

I have a fuse on EVERYTHING, and even an inline on the main wire feeding everything under the console. May be overkill, but I have yet to have anything melt down!

I think one problem is that a lot of these amplifiers and sub-woofer come with a fuse in them. Yes you read that correctly. People think that is sufficient, but it's not.

In this case I would guess that the supply cable was run up and under the passenger compartment and into the rear area. Hole drilled in floor pan to get wire inside. (I've seen this plenty of times) Now with some road vibration and such the insulation on the positive cable begins to wear where it goes thru that hole which was probably not grommet-ed. Now the positive wire coming right from the battery (without a fuse or circuit breaker) is now touching the body and shorting the battery directly to ground. The fuse in any of the equipment is doing NOTHING.

The power cables need to the fused at the power source in installs such as this.

Fuse or breaker as close to the source of your power as feasible is the best practice in all things electrical

Originally Posted by DockShootinJack

Fuse or breaker as close to the source of your power as feasible is the best practice in all things electrical

AND, if and when you develop a problem of some type, DONT just rely on a physical examination of the fuses.
Replace them before moving on to look for other issues.
They are cheap to buy and easily replaced.
Just yesterday that proved itself to me after almost 2 weeks of trouble shooting on a boat not yet 3 years old.
After first checking all the fuses (visually), then replacing 2 batteries for $345, which turned out to be unnecessary, then replacing the 2 bank charger ( also unnecessary ), it turned out to be a 50 cent fuse which didnt appear at least to me to be blown.
The fuse was located at the battery end of a factory made charger cable extension for the starting motor battery bank of the charger.
And it wasent untill i removed that new battery and placed it in the bow near the other battery where the charger leads would fit without the cable extension that i was able to pin down the problem.
I then replaced both fuses in the cable extension, moved the starting battery back to its proper location and everything was fine.
Except for about $500 less in my bank account and lots of frustration.
Im attempting to console myself by telling myself that the batteries were nearing the end of their life anyway.
And i now have a backup charger. lol
Plus its been cold and windy as well.