Fuse for power injection

Habbosrus

Habbosrus

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Joined
Dec 5, 2012
Messages
758
Location
Swansea, NSW
Just wondering if I need to think about adding fuses to my power injection cables? I have fuses on the controllers, but nothing for the power injection. Would there be any benefit of adding a fuse to each cable? I am using 12v ws2811 strips and modules. I am using e6804 controllers. I have various 12v power supplies for the various components. Everything seemed to work in testing on the weekend, but this morning I started to think I may need some sort of fuse on the power injection cables.
 
You should always protect any power cable with a fuse, if you dont and you get a fault the cable will melt and potentialy cause a fire.


Even us sparkies get it wrong sometimes.
I've just finished making all my injection looms for my tree. I used fairly heavy fig 8 cable (rated at about 15Amps)
Anyhoo apparantly I soldered a Pos and Neg together in one of the plugs (still reckon it was a faulty plug ::) [SIZE=78%])[/SIZE]
With a dead short across the output of my 12V 600W power supply the 10A fuses I plan on using would blow instantly. Of course I plugged it all in before my fuses arrived and effectivly created a 4 meter heating element.


It wasnt until the pigtail plug started to disolve in a molten black smoking mess I realised there was an issue.
Luckily I was sitting in front of the box and caught it before the magic smoke turned into magic flame :eek:


So yes fusing is good. Not only does it protect you from incompetence, once your display is out in the elements any number of things could cause the same fault conditions, like moisture in a plug or a nick in the cable. ;)
 
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