Re: Fuse?

Posted by John T on August 24, 2006 at 14:17:29 from (66.244.90.5):

In Reply to: Fuse? posted by Matt Kane on August 24, 2006 at 13:34:46:

Matt, The answer is sure you can get by without one and dont need one and much of similar older equipment didnt use them, its just a matter of personal choice and how safety conscious or over protective you may wish to operate your tractor. The theory was the wiring itself served as the fusible link as its amapcity wasnt a whole lot greater then say the lights would draw anyway and if there were ever a dead short, the wire would likely melt apart and the fault would be cleared.

Nowwwwwwwww all that being said, as an overprotective safety conscious conservative type and one who believes its better to be safe then sorry and an ounce of prevention is worth more then a pound of cure etc etc and especially due to the extreme low cost and ease of installation, I would probably opt to use a fuse myself. The inline type are cheap and the rating would be in the vicinity of say 15 amps for a typical lighting circuit using 14 gauge wire and a couple headlamps. Of course, the actual wattage and total load of allllll the lamps would determine the actual wire and fuse size, but 14 gauge wire fuzed at 15 amps or 12 gauge wire fused at 20 amps might be a typical application..

The other choices are what n where to fuse. If you want to protect ONLY the wiring from the light switches output down to the lights, the fuse would be on the light switches output terminal and then downstream of the fuse would wire to the lights. If you placed the fuse at the load like right at the lights the wires TO THE FUSE arent protected remember, you fuse at the source NOT the load, and you fuse to protect the feeder wires downstream of the fuse. If you wanted to also protect the loads served by the ammeter, then there would be a fuse on the ammeters Load terminal and the wires fed downstream of such a fuse such as to the BAT input terminals on light or ignition switches etc. would also be protected. Other options may be a larger fuze like 20 or more amps right where the ammeters Supply side wiring is fed often where the big battery cable attaches to a starter switch or solenoid.

Where theres gasoline and the potential for gas vapors it sure cant hurt to protect the wiring such that a short will blow the fuse and theres no longer an energy source to continue sparking n arcing HOWEVER the kind of fuses were talking about arent gonna clear fast enough to prevent any initial arc (which could ignite gasoline) mind you, so its more a matter of clearing the fault to prevent gradual heat build up which could cause a conventional fire.

Sooooooooo its your tractor and your choice and it will work fine without any fusing but its inexpensive and cant hurt nuttin to add some fuses and even though they cant provide total protection (may prevent heat build up) Id add them.

Best wishes n God Bless yall

John T (Conservative Fuddy Duddy)

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