Problem Circuit
When I got my current vehicle, the fuse for the blower motor had obviously melted out its receptacle in the fuse panel. The previous owner had wired in an inline type glass fuse. This owners manua...
Forum Discussion
When I accidentally discovered Chinese fuses use lots of unplated aluminum in them I bailed out. Littleman fuses for me from now on. Tin plated copper. An aluminum ATO/ATC blade can get so hot the plastic houses melt, and naturally the crimped copper terminal and wire is going to take the lashes for the chintziness.
A friend showed me a Chinese ATO fuse originally green in color rated for 30 amps. He connected it on a test bench and proceeded to put more than 70 amps through it for several seconds before the plastic housing caught fire.
My philosophy is I will need fuses fuses when a problem crops up which may be never for that circuit. So I use made-in USA fuses, Any more I NEVER use an inline circuit breaker without connecting it to a pair of wires and shorting it across the battery. I've had a few new breakers achieve total short circuit and overheat the 10 gauge cross-link test leads. Right before the guts of the breaker blew out of the housing smoking. A breaker MUST take a full short in stride and come out smiling. Dozens and dozens of times.
OXYMORON: Chinese safety equipment
BTW Chrysler and for that matter all USA car manufacturers learned a bitter lesson with firewall bulkhead connectors and .250" faston and Packard style connectors. No matter WHAT size wire was crimped to these types of slip on connector, 30 amperes was the bitter-end upper current limit and over several years that 30 amp figure degraded horribly.
If a person is CAREFUL with it, white heatsink compound use for mounting transistors and rectifiers can be applied to the sliding surfaces of a slip together wire terminal. But the compound is EXTREMELY conductive. I use a toothpick after I solder the slip on terminal to the wire. The toothpick is tiny. Applying white heat sink compound (zinc oxide the same stuff skiers smear on their nose) on both sides of a blade or bullet terminal can dramatically reduce oxidation and conductivity problems over the long haul. I would not be without this stuff. Go to the drug store and ask the salesperson for a tube of "Zinc Oxide Paste". But be mighty careful how you apply it. I buy this paste by the jar and if it is too runny, I leave the cap off for a couple of weeks until it stiffens up.
A friend showed me a Chinese ATO fuse originally green in color rated for 30 amps. He connected it on a test bench and proceeded to put more than 70 amps through it for several seconds before the plastic housing caught fire.
My philosophy is I will need fuses fuses when a problem crops up which may be never for that circuit. So I use made-in USA fuses, Any more I NEVER use an inline circuit breaker without connecting it to a pair of wires and shorting it across the battery. I've had a few new breakers achieve total short circuit and overheat the 10 gauge cross-link test leads. Right before the guts of the breaker blew out of the housing smoking. A breaker MUST take a full short in stride and come out smiling. Dozens and dozens of times.
OXYMORON: Chinese safety equipment
BTW Chrysler and for that matter all USA car manufacturers learned a bitter lesson with firewall bulkhead connectors and .250" faston and Packard style connectors. No matter WHAT size wire was crimped to these types of slip on connector, 30 amperes was the bitter-end upper current limit and over several years that 30 amp figure degraded horribly.
If a person is CAREFUL with it, white heatsink compound use for mounting transistors and rectifiers can be applied to the sliding surfaces of a slip together wire terminal. But the compound is EXTREMELY conductive. I use a toothpick after I solder the slip on terminal to the wire. The toothpick is tiny. Applying white heat sink compound (zinc oxide the same stuff skiers smear on their nose) on both sides of a blade or bullet terminal can dramatically reduce oxidation and conductivity problems over the long haul. I would not be without this stuff. Go to the drug store and ask the salesperson for a tube of "Zinc Oxide Paste". But be mighty careful how you apply it. I buy this paste by the jar and if it is too runny, I leave the cap off for a couple of weeks until it stiffens up.
