A fuse saved my 48v 23 AH ebike battery after I mis set my multimeter , luckily the charging socket had an inline fuse , so a spark and fuse blew but battery and it's BMS saved , first time I'd seen a lithium battery with charging input fused not just the usual output fused , lesson learned
Has it been mentioned that fuses should be within afoot or so of the current source so the entire circuit is protected? No? Consider it mentioned. A burned through wire is still capable of carrying current to the break, and a short to ground could occur at that point. Cheers from Ontario.
Fitting inline fuses throughout my solar power setup certainly did save my shed from burning down. I accidentally fitted a 40amp blade fuse between my batter bank and inverter when it should have been an 80-100amp, didn't take long for it to blow and melt the plastic casing. So yes, definitely fit inline fuses because running two e-bike battery chargers through my 1000w inverter might only pull 2-4amps at the AC end but pulls about 24amps through the DC battery to inverter cables, then add more load from other devises and soon you'll be pulling a lot more amps than the 40amp fuse can take !! Now I use an 80amp breaker !
I know its an old video but for future viewers here are the names of the two unnamed fuses. The The blue blade fuse is commonly called a MAXI fuse. It was used primarily in US cars up to the mid 90's and is used as he stated in uninteruptable power supplies (UPS) or other devices with high amp ratings. The fuse in the bottom is called a Buss fuse.
my panels are 8amp . i put 10 amp fuses inline . so anything over 2amps or 3 will blow the fuse . and i have the big barrel inline fuse you have , in 80 amps for the panels to charger , and from battery 's
There are some automotive circuit breakers that plug in just like these spade connector fuses. They will be DC of course. I'm going to have a look on my next auto wrecker visit to see if any would be of a useful value. This type of breaker is "auto reset", so are not suitable as a switch.
Actually the cheapest "holder" for blade fuses is simply two female spade connectors. You can use the insulated ones to make it safer. Those 5AG "car audio" fuse holders are often crap. They can present a fairly high resistance at times especially once they age. In fact I had one that was in line to a 1000 watt inverter partially melt down! I wondered why the lights went out! At the time the load on the inverter wasn't particularly high!
Yeah I have used spade connectors before - in my first ever install. In fact the cheap single fuse holders are exactly that, two spade connectors set in plastic. I guess you could solder straight to the tabs too, but it's not so easy to swap out. Yeah the car audio fuse was quite loose, I wouldn't like to run 40 amps through it for any length of time. Glad to hear the melting didn't get out of control before you noticed it.
You would have problems soldering to a blade fuse as usually the metal that is used is aluminium. Well I guess I was lucky in that it caused a big enough voltage drop to shut down the inverter. Then again, if it hadn't it wouldn't have been hot & beginning to melt! lol I replaced it with a 63 amp breaker. I have a lot more confidence in that..! ;)
Solder in combination with a spring steel wire or strap can make a kind of "last resort fuse" the wire gets really hot, the solder melts and then it springs free breaking the connexion.
Nice introduction to fuses. I just built a solar setup for my cabin. I think I used half the time just double and tripple checking the wire diameter, cable lenght and fuse ratings. I would say it's a lot more thinking required to do 12 volt than mains. Would have loved to see ta close up of the fuse when it got a high load, and a clip showing how long it would take to kill a 1A fuse at the medium load (is it minutes or hours?)
Thanks. I left the 1 amp fuse for a good twenty minutes running a 1.6 amp load before I got bored of waiting. I suspect 2 amp plus would have made it go much quicker. I'm glad to hear you've been researching your wire gauge and fuse rating - I hope this video make others do the same. If there's demand I might do a follow up video - but my camera is not great in macro mode.
I've just discovered your channel and I really enjoy your intelligent presentation of the concepts in your videos. I'm in the energy management program at a local community college and really interested at learning about solar energy. Your videos are giving me very helpful information for a practical and safe setup with my introduction into solar electricity and battery powered systems. I look forward to further content. Cheers from Oregon!
My 48v Inverter died and went dead short. The fuse between that and my battery blew properly. Without that fuse its possible my 10 awg wires could have carried over 100amps which would have definitely destroyed the wire insulation and maybe caught fire. A fuse as close to the battery as possible is always a good idea. To bad I have to replace my 25 year old 4000w inverter. But it did great the last couple decades. My worry now is that the blade fuses are rated at 32v. The max voltage of my battery pack is 58.8v. What was the possibility of that fuse arcing and causing a fire at that voltage. But I can’t find a good 60v fuse solution.
Seriously like these fuses series. Very interesting and it should be basic knowledge and standard procedure to use. Unfortunately I and I suspect others think about getting devices up and running and forgetting these things. Ok when doing 3.3V stuff but at higher Wattages not so anymore. There is a common mistake here, even on the news, that people say that there was a fire because of a short circuit. Well wrong since that would trip a fuse. Most fires start because of a bad contact or the lack of proper fusing. Adam it might be worth to do some tests on cable and connector losses .
+Luc Peeters Thank you. It's a good point about high resistance contacts. I didn't like the loose fit of that car audio fuse. At 40 amps I'd be concerned it would generate some heat. You need a thermal camera to properly show that though and that's a bit beyond this channel for now!
Thanks. Normally you would just connect all negative cables together using a bus bar or something similar. In vehicles for example the chassis of the car is usually the common negative point or ‘ground’.
Good video Adam. I've recently purchased a distributed fuse holder, a bit like the one you have, but it also have a negative return on it. But bulkier than yours - wish I'd seen your video first! Hopefully I'll do an update video at some point but soooo busy...
Thanks Martin - you're not getting rid for the caravan control panel are you? It'll be great to see an update - that floor keeps me awake at night sometimes. :-)
***** Yes, I'm considered removing the caravan control panel - one thing I've learned is that your ideas of where things need to be change, so flexibility is key! Part of me wants all the controls etc out of sight, and part of me wants it on show!!! Floor seems fine now - but big changes afoot as I've bought a mini wood burner and need to shoehorn it in - hence some of the need for a re-think on the electrics! All good fun!
Yeah, I think one of the challenges of putting things into a solar rig is striking a balance between permanency & allowing relatively simple changes/updates at a later stage. It's certainly annoying to mount something only to decide a week later to move or change it, leaving the holes etc of the previous work behind! I try to think ahead when doing anything of possible future upgrade paths, but there's only so much scope there. It's probably why I often leave things in temporary lash-up scenarios for so long, because I want be happy with the way they are working before committing to permanent installation!
Hi mate Ireally enjoyed watching your video I bought 150w solar panel and I just want to play safe could you tell me what size fuse I would need on a 4 ml cable to my battery, if you need a payment for your advice I will gladly give but would appreciate your help
4mm cable? That’s good for 30 amps plus. Assuming your panel has a maximum power point at 18 volts - that would be 8.3amps. If it’s a 36v mppt, that’d be 4.2amps. So a ten amp fuse will be good and will absolutely protect the wire.
@@davidbrackenbrough6099 no worries. Well that will become your weakest link so yes, you should take that into account. At 150 watts though the current is pretty low and you may not need to worry too much.
Ultimately your wire. The fuses and breakers are to protect your wiring from damage if the devices connected pull more current than they should. If your panels can provide say ten amps normally, I’d look to install wiring suitable for fifteen amps and fuse at twelve amps or something along those lines. The same applies to loads - calculate your maximum concurrent load, size cabling to suit with head room then rate your fuse to sit in between the two.
Very nice. its 100% the same in all mcb's they will run high but the bimetalic strip will eventually knock it out and if theres a fault and there is a sizable current flowing the coil pushes the mcb out! I'll be honest I use old wylex fuse boards I rip out of houses. One of which has a woodern base. and use 5/10/15 Amp fuse wire. probably not the greatest idea as the fuse will allow twice its rated at for a fair while!
+pietkaify Thanks. I was surprised to find no bimetallic strip in the DC breakers after watching mjlortons video on breakers. Clearly DC current does still make the strip bend but instead it looks like they use the hydraulic solenoid instead. I think you're more qualified than me on this subject so if you're happy with your method then I am too. I don't think either of us have particularly high voltage or current going on.
Hello I have a small solar panel 12v 50watts , Battery 12v 70ah , load 12v 24watts. 1-What’s the size of wire(awg) I can install ? 2-should I use fuse ?if it need ,where should I put?what’s size of fuse? Thank !
Hi I have a 100w renogy solar panel going to a 40 amp renogy solar charge controller I would like to fuse the solar in and and the power to battery but no idea of fuse size plz help if you can answer
I have a sxs and 1 night we rode went to sleep and woke up to my sxs almost on fire something shorted out so now I take battery cable off everytime it's going to be setting without me right there by it anyway I want to put a breaker on it NOT FOR PROTECTION but just to kill all power so I don't have to keep putting cables on and off a ac breaker would fit best in space I have what do yall recommend I use thanks in advance....
hi mate what fuse would I use to go from my 12v battery bank to the thing I am powering. I am using 4 12v batteries in my bank and powering L.E.D lights and a car radio. if you could help or give me some info it would be great.
Hi adam just like to say great video .could you please give me some advice on what size fuses to use on a small set up consisting of a 10 amp solar panel 30amp solar control charger a 12 v battery and a 400 w pure sine inverter as this is my first attempt at this any advice would be greatly appreciated
+mathus73 A 400w inverter is likely to pull more than 30 amps at full load (probably 35-40) so you'd probably need to spec your wire and fuse at 40 amps to be on the safe side. You obviously need to connect the inverter straight to your battery. Your solar charge controller can probably be fused at 10 amps if that's all you ever expect to be putting through it. Most of my solar panels aren't fused. They don't hold a charge and can be short circuited without any issue. Solar panels have to be held in a mid point to create any energy. Now I wouldn't recommend this for large installations but it really isn't necessary for small panels. Thanks for the nice comments.
@@rogercrier solar panels are connected to a charge controller which prevents back flow from the battery. most good quality panels also have a diode to prevent this also.
@Adam Welch hello i have to questions for you I've been meaning to ask. I have a boat running a 12v system 1) would it be ok to use 250v 32mm glass cartridge fuses on a 12v circuit 2) I have a bilge pump and a float switch. On the float switch it says 12v 20amp max and on the bilge pump it says 3.5amp draw. I was wondering what amp fuse do i use in the bilge pump control panel. Thanks
I am having problems with the round red and black type rated 50amps , I've got about 36 amps going through it and the output side gets hot sometimes trips out Yet only having 36 amps ,I am thinking of trying a dc type called tomzn type do you think they are ok ? Are the red and black ones meant to have the little brass collars crushed over the wire or just the wire pushed in and then the Allen screw on to the wire in the brass collar /lug ? Any advice massively appreciate ,always watch your videos .
the standard size car fuse, theres cheap fakes that dont blow.., they glow red and set your car fuse box on fire! guess how i know....poundsops and ebay full of them
2*9w is 18w. Power(P)=Current(I)*Voltage(V) so I=P/V so I=18/12 so I=1.5 amps. A 2amp fuse will be sensible as long as your wiring can handle 2 amps - because that is what the fuse is protecting.
Im starting my first small off grid system and i wonder if it will work when i have one 100 watt solar panel and a 30a pmw charge controller, a 150 watt modified sine inverter but one 500 on the way in the mail and 6 x 12 volt batteries that all have different capacity ( all used car batteries with 40-70 of original capacity - they all hold a nominal 12.6 charge with no problem). So i have much more battery capacity atm that i can drain with the inverter but im wondering how do i connect the batteries to the controller and the inverter? And will it give charge problems with them all having different capacity? Do i just wire them all in parallel to the charge controller and the inverter or i need some special wiring because of the different capacity? i know it cant separate charge each battery but im hoping that i can just connect all batteries to positive and negative and the inverter will drain tha batteries so slow that the charge controller just maintanence charge them and the drain will be about equal for all the batteries?
Using different capacity batteries isn't optimal and it may be better to leave any very low capacity batteries out of the pack. Most online resources will tell you that a battery pack made up of three batteries one of 70Ah, one 80Ah and one 100Ah will actually perform the same as three 70Ah batteries in parallel. The larger batteries wont be able to give their extra power because the smallest will deplete first and drag the others down. Actually I'm starting to think it's not wuite as simple as that. I suspect the 100Ah battery will actually charge the 70Ah one a bit. In reality the number is probably somewhere between 70*3=210Ah and the total capacity 70+80+100=250Ah. So if your dissimilar batteries are in the same ballpark then it's probably worth putting them together. If they are way apart then it's not a good idea. If you want optimal performance, buy multiple new batteries from the same brand, at the same time, with the same rating. Wiring - for me, put them all in parallel - all the positives together, all the negatives together, but connect your charge and discharge leads across the whole pack. So in a three battery system connect your solar charge controller to the pos of battery 1 and the neg of battery 3. It should give a more even charge. Your inverter could go from neg on battery 1 and pos on battery 3 to give a more even discharge. Hope that helps.
thank you. i guess i will have to start discharge test them all to know each capacity. its gonna take awhile with my imax b6 at 2a discharge but once i have them all tested i will know the exact capacity for each battery
What I don't understand is why you would need a fuse to protect the wiring at all. Presumaly you have already made some sort of decision about what gauge of wiring to use to handle the likely current. How then do you decide on what size of fuse to use? Should the fuse you put in be less than the wire can handle but then how do you decide on that?
If for some reason your cables carry more than you planned for they will get warm, might melt the insulation and this can cause fire. So you spec your wires above what you think your normal maximum load will be, and fuse them at this load (probably a fraction above). Often in a twelve volt application you have put higher gauge cable in than you might otherwise to reduce the voltage drop. So those cables are able to carry even more current and the danger increases.
Thanks for the reply. I'm being thick here I know because there obviously is a need for fuses otherwise they wouldn't be used. I'm just trying to get my head around how you select the size, especially since your video highlights the fact that fuses often can take more current than their rating, I also don't understand your last sentance. If you have used thicker gauge cable which will handle even more current how has the danger increased?
Lets say you're anticipating your load over a cable to be 8 amps. You're going to find it hard to find an 8 amp fuse. You're going to be stressing a 7.5 amp so you'll choose a 10 amp - an easy to find fuse which is rated for the current you intend to put through it. It will carry the intended load, but you're limiting the circuit to not much more than what you designed it for. As for the bigger cable potentially being more dangerous well lets remember what a fuse is - a thin piece of wire rated to carry a specific current for an amount of time. The bigger your wire the more current is can carry. The more current means the more energy can be released if something goes wrong. A thin piece of wire across a car battery will act as a fuse - it will burn up very quickly and break the circuit. A thick piece of wire will allow the battery to discharge a lot more current for a longer period of time - causing heat both in the wire and in the battery.
Thanks for taking the time to explain that Adam. I think I am catching on now. Part of my problem understanding this is I am not differentiating between the 'normal' current you anticipate flowing in a wire and that which might potentially flow in a problem situation such as a short circuit.
So at 5:00 in the video, should both the negative and positive wire have a fuse? Fusing the positive side didn't help the wire on the negative side so it seems the negative side needs a fuse as well. You put the small wire there on purpose, but what about when someone does it due to mistake or failed calculation? At 5:48, you said "so we see the fuse is to protect the wiring not the device at the end of it", but that fuse didn't protect the wiring on the negative side, the negative wire started to smoke. You corrected the negative wire on your own with a bigger wire, but the fuse didn't protect the tiny negative wire. I'm so conFUSED. LOL.
Hello. The same amount of current flows throughout a circuit. So the fuse or breaker should be chosen based on the weakest component. I’d imagine in 99% of cases your pos and neg wires would be the same spec, but if not the fuse needs to be chosen based on the lower of the two current carrying capability. You only need one fuse or breaker, because once it’s popped no current can flow in any part of the circuit.
A fuse saved my 48v 23 AH ebike battery after I mis set my multimeter , luckily the charging socket had an inline fuse , so a spark and fuse blew but battery and it's BMS saved , first time I'd seen a lithium battery with charging input fused not just the usual output fused , lesson learned
Has it been mentioned that fuses should be within afoot or so of the current source so the entire circuit is protected? No? Consider it mentioned. A burned through wire is still capable of carrying current to the break, and a short to ground could occur at that point. Cheers from Ontario.
Fitting inline fuses throughout my solar power setup certainly did save my shed from burning down. I accidentally fitted a 40amp blade fuse between my batter bank and inverter when it should have been an 80-100amp, didn't take long for it to blow and melt the plastic casing. So yes, definitely fit inline fuses because running two e-bike battery chargers through my 1000w inverter might only pull 2-4amps at the AC end but pulls about 24amps through the DC battery to inverter cables, then add more load from other devises and soon you'll be pulling a lot more amps than the 40amp fuse can take !! Now I use an 80amp breaker !
I know its an old video but for future viewers here are the names of the two unnamed fuses. The The blue blade fuse is commonly called a MAXI fuse. It was used primarily in US cars up to the mid 90's and is used as he stated in uninteruptable power supplies (UPS) or other devices with high amp ratings. The fuse in the bottom is called a Buss fuse.
my panels are 8amp . i put 10 amp fuses inline . so anything over 2amps or 3 will blow the fuse . and i have the big barrel inline fuse you have , in 80 amps for the panels to charger , and from battery 's
you can also get diodes that are in the shape of these fuses so you can use the fuse holder and the diode to make your own inline blocking diode.
There are some automotive circuit breakers that plug in just like these spade connector fuses. They will be DC of course. I'm going to have a look on my next auto wrecker visit to see if any would be of a useful value. This type of breaker is "auto reset", so are not suitable as a switch.
Actually the cheapest "holder" for blade fuses is simply two female spade connectors. You can use the insulated ones to make it safer. Those 5AG "car audio" fuse holders are often crap. They can present a fairly high resistance at times especially once they age. In fact I had one that was in line to a 1000 watt inverter partially melt down! I wondered why the lights went out! At the time the load on the inverter wasn't particularly high!
Yeah I have used spade connectors before - in my first ever install. In fact the cheap single fuse holders are exactly that, two spade connectors set in plastic. I guess you could solder straight to the tabs too, but it's not so easy to swap out.
Yeah the car audio fuse was quite loose, I wouldn't like to run 40 amps through it for any length of time. Glad to hear the melting didn't get out of control before you noticed it.
You would have problems soldering to a blade fuse as usually the metal that is used is aluminium. Well I guess I was lucky in that it caused a big enough voltage drop to shut down the inverter. Then again, if it hadn't it wouldn't have been hot & beginning to melt! lol I replaced it with a 63 amp breaker. I have a lot more confidence in that..! ;)
That's an interesting thought - might need to think about that for my next little project. Thanks.
Solder in combination with a spring steel wire or strap can make a kind of "last resort fuse" the wire gets really hot, the solder melts and then it springs free breaking the connexion.
Nice introduction to fuses. I just built a solar setup for my cabin. I think I used half the time just double and tripple checking the wire diameter, cable lenght and fuse ratings. I would say it's a lot more thinking required to do 12 volt than mains. Would have loved to see ta close up of the fuse when it got a high load, and a clip showing how long it would take to kill a 1A fuse at the medium load (is it minutes or hours?)
Thanks. I left the 1 amp fuse for a good twenty minutes running a 1.6 amp load before I got bored of waiting. I suspect 2 amp plus would have made it go much quicker. I'm glad to hear you've been researching your wire gauge and fuse rating - I hope this video make others do the same.
If there's demand I might do a follow up video - but my camera is not great in macro mode.
I've just discovered your channel and I really enjoy your intelligent presentation of the concepts in your videos. I'm in the energy management program at a local community college and really interested at learning about solar energy. Your videos are giving me very helpful information for a practical and safe setup with my introduction into solar electricity and battery powered systems. I look forward to further content. Cheers from Oregon!
+Fjorlorn Cheers. Glad to have you along.
My 48v Inverter died and went dead short. The fuse between that and my battery blew properly. Without that fuse its possible my 10 awg wires could have carried over 100amps which would have definitely destroyed the wire insulation and maybe caught fire. A fuse as close to the battery as possible is always a good idea.
To bad I have to replace my 25 year old 4000w inverter. But it did great the last couple decades.
My worry now is that the blade fuses are rated at 32v. The max voltage of my battery pack is 58.8v. What was the possibility of that fuse arcing and causing a fire at that voltage. But I can’t find a good 60v fuse solution.
Seriously like these fuses series. Very interesting and it should be basic knowledge and standard procedure to use. Unfortunately I and I suspect others think about getting devices up and running and forgetting these things. Ok when doing 3.3V stuff but at higher Wattages not so anymore.
There is a common mistake here, even on the news, that people say that there was a fire because of a short circuit. Well wrong since that would trip a fuse. Most fires start because of a bad contact or the lack of proper fusing.
Adam it might be worth to do some tests on cable and connector losses .
+Luc Peeters Thank you. It's a good point about high resistance contacts. I didn't like the loose fit of that car audio fuse. At 40 amps I'd be concerned it would generate some heat. You need a thermal camera to properly show that though and that's a bit beyond this channel for now!
Very good video.
Really informative!
Adam at 2.56 the fuse box seems to only have one cable connector for Positive. How do you connect the Negative cable? Great video.
Thanks. Normally you would just connect all negative cables together using a bus bar or something similar. In vehicles for example the chassis of the car is usually the common negative point or ‘ground’.
Good video Adam. I've recently purchased a distributed fuse holder, a bit like the one you have, but it also have a negative return on it. But bulkier than yours - wish I'd seen your video first! Hopefully I'll do an update video at some point but soooo busy...
Thanks Martin - you're not getting rid for the caravan control panel are you? It'll be great to see an update - that floor keeps me awake at night sometimes. :-)
***** Yes, I'm considered removing the caravan control panel - one thing I've learned is that your ideas of where things need to be change, so flexibility is key! Part of me wants all the controls etc out of sight, and part of me wants it on show!!! Floor seems fine now - but big changes afoot as I've bought a mini wood burner and need to shoehorn it in - hence some of the need for a re-think on the electrics! All good fun!
+Martin Doyle A heated shed - excellent! If only I had the space.
Yeah, I think one of the challenges of putting things into a solar rig is striking a balance between permanency & allowing relatively simple changes/updates at a later stage. It's certainly annoying to mount something only to decide a week later to move or change it, leaving the holes etc of the previous work behind! I try to think ahead when doing anything of possible future upgrade paths, but there's only so much scope there. It's probably why I often leave things in temporary lash-up scenarios for so long, because I want be happy with the way they are working before committing to permanent installation!
Great advice Adam...thanks
Thank you.
Thank you so much I got a lot out of this and I actually learned some thing for a change thank you
Enjoyed video thanks and didn't know about the blade type box. its on my shopping list thanks heaps
Hi mate Ireally enjoyed watching your video I bought 150w solar panel and I just want to play safe could you tell me what size fuse I would need on a 4 ml cable to my battery, if you need a payment for your advice I will gladly give but would appreciate your help
4mm cable? That’s good for 30 amps plus. Assuming your panel has a maximum power point at 18 volts - that would be 8.3amps. If it’s a 36v mppt, that’d be 4.2amps. So a ten amp fuse will be good and will absolutely protect the wire.
@@AdamWelchUK many thanks for your help , does it matter on the diameter of the fuse cable if it's not the same diameter as the 4mm im using .
@@davidbrackenbrough6099 no worries. Well that will become your weakest link so yes, you should take that into account. At 150 watts though the current is pretty low and you may not need to worry too much.
@@AdamWelchUK many thanks for your help if u would like me to buy u a pint for your help just let me know cheers .
Great vid. Thanks for the info!
Hi Adam, I believe the large 60A fuse is called a maxi fuse.
+Steven Watson Thanks for that Steven.
Adam Welch no worries Adam I have just enjoyed both of your videos. I hope I may have helped you in some way. Kind regards.
+Steven Watson Cheers. I'm very lucky to have lots of helpful comments just like this. I really appreciate them all.
Blade fuses? Really? They are used in millions of cars world wide so I'm fairly confident the design is ok.
My mistake, sorry - so you find the larger 'maxi' fuse have a loose fit? Isn't that the holder rather than the fuse then?
What determines the amperage of fuss or circuit breaker to choose for solar panels PV and battery?
Ultimately your wire.
The fuses and breakers are to protect your wiring from damage if the devices connected pull more current than they should.
If your panels can provide say ten amps normally, I’d look to install wiring suitable for fifteen amps and fuse at twelve amps or something along those lines.
The same applies to loads - calculate your maximum concurrent load, size cabling to suit with head room then rate your fuse to sit in between the two.
Very nice. its 100% the same in all mcb's they will run high but the bimetalic strip will eventually knock it out and if theres a fault and there is a sizable current flowing the coil pushes the mcb out!
I'll be honest I use old wylex fuse boards I rip out of houses. One of which has a woodern base. and use 5/10/15 Amp fuse wire. probably not the greatest idea as the fuse will allow twice its rated at for a fair while!
+pietkaify Thanks. I was surprised to find no bimetallic strip in the DC breakers after watching mjlortons video on breakers. Clearly DC current does still make the strip bend but instead it looks like they use the hydraulic solenoid instead. I think you're more qualified than me on this subject so if you're happy with your method then I am too. I don't think either of us have particularly high voltage or current going on.
Nice demonstration - thanks!
largest blade fuse in your group is a Maxi blade fuse.
+Gilbert Morgan Thanks.
Hello
I have a small solar panel 12v 50watts , Battery 12v 70ah , load 12v 24watts.
1-What’s the size of wire(awg) I can install ?
2-should I use fuse ?if it need ,where should I put?what’s size of fuse?
Thank !
new follower also can I use these in line fuses for my solar panel going into the charge controller
Nice video Adam - keep it up.
Thanks very helpful 😎👍
Thanks ❤
Hi I have a 100w renogy solar panel going to a 40 amp renogy solar charge controller I would like to fuse the solar in and and the power to battery but no idea of fuse size plz help if you can answer
I have a sxs and 1 night we rode went to sleep and woke up to my sxs almost on fire something shorted out so now I take battery cable off everytime it's going to be setting without me right there by it anyway I want to put a breaker on it NOT FOR PROTECTION but just to kill all power so I don't have to keep putting cables on and off a ac breaker would fit best in space I have what do yall recommend I use thanks in advance....
Nice video :) I hadn't seen those little fuse boxes before.
Thanks Mr Addict!
hi mate what fuse would I use to go from my 12v battery bank to the thing I am powering. I am using 4 12v batteries in my bank and powering L.E.D lights and a car radio. if you could help or give me some info it would be great.
Hi adam just like to say great video .could you please give me some advice on what size fuses to use on a small set up consisting of a 10 amp solar panel 30amp solar control charger a 12 v battery and a 400 w pure sine inverter as this is my first attempt at this any advice would be greatly appreciated
+mathus73 A 400w inverter is likely to pull more than 30 amps at full load (probably 35-40) so you'd probably need to spec your wire and fuse at 40 amps to be on the safe side. You obviously need to connect the inverter straight to your battery.
Your solar charge controller can probably be fused at 10 amps if that's all you ever expect to be putting through it. Most of my solar panels aren't fused. They don't hold a charge and can be short circuited without any issue. Solar panels have to be held in a mid point to create any energy. Now I wouldn't recommend this for large installations but it really isn't necessary for small panels. Thanks for the nice comments.
I thought solar panels were fused because of the power available FROM the battery that they are connected to?
@@rogercrier solar panels are connected to a charge controller which prevents back flow from the battery. most good quality panels also have a diode to prevent this also.
@Adam Welch
hello i have to questions for you I've been meaning to ask. I have a boat running a 12v system 1) would it be ok to use 250v 32mm glass cartridge fuses on a 12v circuit 2) I have a bilge pump and a float switch. On the float switch it says 12v 20amp max and on the bilge pump it says 3.5amp draw. I was wondering what amp fuse do i use in the bilge pump control panel.
Thanks
I am having problems with the round red and black type rated 50amps , I've got about 36 amps going through it and the output side gets hot sometimes trips out
Yet only having 36 amps ,I am thinking of trying a dc type called tomzn type do you think they are ok ? Are the red and black ones meant to have the little brass collars crushed over the wire or just the wire pushed in and then the Allen screw on to the wire in the brass collar /lug ? Any advice massively appreciate ,always watch your videos .
the standard size car fuse, theres cheap fakes that dont blow.., they glow red and set your car fuse box on fire!
guess how i know....poundsops and ebay full of them
I have 4-12vbatt in parallel = 440Ah. I wanna connect 2led 12v (9w bulbs). Question ill be needing to install 2.5 fuse or 5am fuse?
2*9w is 18w. Power(P)=Current(I)*Voltage(V) so I=P/V so I=18/12 so I=1.5 amps. A 2amp fuse will be sensible as long as your wiring can handle 2 amps - because that is what the fuse is protecting.
Subbed! Thanks
What's the name of the multiple distributor fuse. I searched online and can't find it. Thanks
Check the link in the description - fuse boxes.
good
You sound a lot like Malcolm McDowell lol anyways this is a very good video , thank you
Your eBay links don’t work.
Yeah fuse protect wire
Im starting my first small off grid system and i wonder if it will work when i have one 100 watt solar panel and a 30a pmw charge controller, a 150 watt modified sine inverter but one 500 on the way in the mail and 6 x 12 volt batteries that all have different capacity ( all used car batteries with 40-70 of original capacity - they all hold a nominal 12.6 charge with no problem).
So i have much more battery capacity atm that i can drain with the inverter but im wondering how do i connect the batteries to the controller and the inverter?
And will it give charge problems with them all having different capacity?
Do i just wire them all in parallel to the charge controller and the inverter or i need some special wiring because of the different capacity?
i know it cant separate charge each battery but im hoping that i can just connect all batteries to positive and negative and the inverter will drain tha batteries so slow that the charge controller just maintanence charge them and the drain will be about equal for all the batteries?
Using different capacity batteries isn't optimal and it may be better to leave any very low capacity batteries out of the pack. Most online resources will tell you that a battery pack made up of three batteries one of 70Ah, one 80Ah and one 100Ah will actually perform the same as three 70Ah batteries in parallel. The larger batteries wont be able to give their extra power because the smallest will deplete first and drag the others down. Actually I'm starting to think it's not wuite as simple as that. I suspect the 100Ah battery will actually charge the 70Ah one a bit. In reality the number is probably somewhere between 70*3=210Ah and the total capacity 70+80+100=250Ah.
So if your dissimilar batteries are in the same ballpark then it's probably worth putting them together. If they are way apart then it's not a good idea. If you want optimal performance, buy multiple new batteries from the same brand, at the same time, with the same rating.
Wiring - for me, put them all in parallel - all the positives together, all the negatives together, but connect your charge and discharge leads across the whole pack. So in a three battery system connect your solar charge controller to the pos of battery 1 and the neg of battery 3. It should give a more even charge. Your inverter could go from neg on battery 1 and pos on battery 3 to give a more even discharge.
Hope that helps.
thank you.
i guess i will have to start discharge test them all to know each capacity.
its gonna take awhile with my imax b6 at 2a discharge but once i have them all tested i will know the exact capacity for each battery
What I don't understand is why you would need a fuse to protect the wiring at all. Presumaly you have already made some sort of decision about what gauge of wiring to use to handle the likely current. How then do you decide on what size of fuse to use? Should the fuse you put in be less than the wire can handle but then how do you decide on that?
If for some reason your cables carry more than you planned for they will get warm, might melt the insulation and this can cause fire. So you spec your wires above what you think your normal maximum load will be, and fuse them at this load (probably a fraction above).
Often in a twelve volt application you have put higher gauge cable in than you might otherwise to reduce the voltage drop. So those cables are able to carry even more current and the danger increases.
Thanks for the reply. I'm being thick here I know because there obviously is a need for fuses otherwise they wouldn't be used. I'm just trying to get my head around how you select the size, especially since your video highlights the fact that fuses often can take more current than their rating,
I also don't understand your last sentance. If you have used thicker gauge cable which will handle even more current how has the danger increased?
Lets say you're anticipating your load over a cable to be 8 amps. You're going to find it hard to find an 8 amp fuse. You're going to be stressing a 7.5 amp so you'll choose a 10 amp - an easy to find fuse which is rated for the current you intend to put through it. It will carry the intended load, but you're limiting the circuit to not much more than what you designed it for.
As for the bigger cable potentially being more dangerous well lets remember what a fuse is - a thin piece of wire rated to carry a specific current for an amount of time. The bigger your wire the more current is can carry. The more current means the more energy can be released if something goes wrong. A thin piece of wire across a car battery will act as a fuse - it will burn up very quickly and break the circuit. A thick piece of wire will allow the battery to discharge a lot more current for a longer period of time - causing heat both in the wire and in the battery.
Thanks for taking the time to explain that Adam. I think I am catching on now. Part of my problem understanding this is I am not differentiating between the 'normal' current you anticipate flowing in a wire and that which might potentially flow in a problem situation such as a short circuit.
So at 5:00 in the video, should both the negative and positive wire have a fuse? Fusing the positive side didn't help the wire on the negative side so it seems the negative side needs a fuse as well. You put the small wire there on purpose, but what about when someone does it due to mistake or failed calculation? At 5:48, you said "so we see the fuse is to protect the wiring not the device at the end of it", but that fuse didn't protect the wiring on the negative side, the negative wire started to smoke. You corrected the negative wire on your own with a bigger wire, but the fuse didn't protect the tiny negative wire. I'm so conFUSED. LOL.
Hello. The same amount of current flows throughout a circuit. So the fuse or breaker should be chosen based on the weakest component. I’d imagine in 99% of cases your pos and neg wires would be the same spec, but if not the fuse needs to be chosen based on the lower of the two current carrying capability. You only need one fuse or breaker, because once it’s popped no current can flow in any part of the circuit.
My inverter 1200w maximal 2400w ¿fuse? for protect the battery? 200a ? Thanks.