Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The weakest link at the bitter end of the power cord



















This inline fuse is not a good piece of work, and I cut out two of them on boats this week. Both were attached to sounder module power cords. In both cases, the sounder modules would not power up. Here is the problem. The metal contacts attached to the the wire are very small stamped tabs that are bent over. Over time, due to spring pressure, or other mysterious, and unknown cosmic forces, the tabs end up being bent over slightly past ninety degrees, reducing what little contact area they have to nearly nil. You can see in the picture (click it for a better view), the lower contact is bent at an angle, leaving only the edge for a contact surface. The less contact area there is, the harder it is to get Mr. Electricity through the system, but I know I don't need to tell the experts that. On devices that require real power, like a sounder module, this problem is exacerbated. I have had problems with this fuse holder on lower power devices also. Through the years my wire cutters have been used to change out many of these devices, and I replaced them with a better quality fuse holder. Come on boy and girls, you can find a better inline fuse than this one.