Things you should know about fuses. (including a 15kV one)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2024
- This was supposed to be a short video, but that didn't happen.
In summary:-
A fuse is designed to be the weakest point in a circuit so that it fails first and breaks the circuit protecting other components and cables.
A 1A fuse does not blow at 1A. It will blow quickly at very high fault currents, but take progressively longer to open the circuit as the current is lowered to nearer its rating.
Glass fuses are only rated to break a low fault current.
Ceramic sand filled fuses can break much higher fault current.
Time delay or slow blow fuses (T) can withstand surges.
Quick blow or fast blow fuses (F) will blow faster in a fault.
Semiconductor fuses (FF) are very sensitive and expensive.
The voltage rating of a fuse indicates its ability to work safely up to that voltage. 3A is 3A so a 250V fuse will work fine on 12V.
If a slow blow is replaced with a quick blow fuse it may keep blowing intermittently. It's not uncommon for less aware people to replace an anti-surge fuse with the quick blow one they had handy. Then when the fuse blows again the person changing it may replace it with another quick blow because that was what was fitted. Assess the type of load and make an informed decision.
Never short out fuses. People who get over-confident in their fuse-shorting repair skills usually learn the hard way when they bypass too many and cables start going on fire or the last one they put in blows up in their hand causing a shock and burn.
Wrapping fuses in tin foil or adding external wire can end badly due to the unconstrained nature of the fault breaking element. If you create/use a fuse that has a higher current handling ability than the thinnest cable in the circuit, then that cable may go on fire along its full length and cause significant damage to its surroundings.
HRC (High Rupturing Capacity) fuses have the fuse wire running through a fine powder that quenches the arc quickly and forms a solid glass-like substance internally in the process.
Industrial multimeters use HRC fuses so they can break the circuit safely if accidentally applied across a high current supply while in current measuring mode, or if another inappropriate range causes failure. I know they're expensive, but you must replace them with the correct type of fuse to avoid a scenario where the meter literally explodes in your hands causing shock and burns.
Electronic PTC (Positive Temperature Coefficient) fuses are ideal in many low voltage electronic applications. They work by going high resistance when they get hot and will reset when the power is turned off for a while.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
T=Time delay
F=Fast
FF=Fucking Fast
Works really well in German, F = flink and T= träge, but FF = ferdammt flink :^)
just that you spell it "verdammt" :P
And TT is turtle träge? Wait that's not German.
You didn't want to get it, did you?
that is how i was taught
The thing to remember about fuses is that the $100,000 irreplaceable component will invariably protect the $0.05 fast-acting fuse by blowing first.
That is just Bad Design.
Yeah mate, you got it! We of the Fuse Preservation Society will back a quantity of metal over doped substrates any day.....
Seriously, I view fuses as a last resort to stop things going on fire, I would never consider them as capable to protect semiconductors, but there are Thermistors (ptc is mentioned but I think I recall ntc also?)
It comes down to design, making a system safe and reliable should NEVER depend on your choice of fuses, they are last-ditch backup in the event of failure....think of them as fire extinguishers, to be used when SHTF, BUT CANNOT PREVENT THE EVENT.
Well, it is replaceable, just with $100,000
@@Julmaa87 there are things that cannot be replaced
@@U20E0 Yes, humans. And well, life in general.
The T stands for the german word "träge" (sluggish) :-D Because: The inventor was a german engineer and they are based on a german standard (1930 DIN and 1943 VDE 0820
FF - Flink Flink (fast fast)
F - Flink (fast)
M - Mittelträge (semi sluggish)
T - Träge (sluggish)
TT - Träge Träge (sluggish sluggish)
Thought FF was fast as f**k
@@dopiaza2006 or F'ing fast.
Musste extra nachschauen ob das jemand schon geschrieben hat.
in America we designate them a bit differently. for example, you can have a 30K hv fuse link which is 30 amps and letter denotes how many cycles before opening. typically i see E rated fuses frequently for fused disconnects that feed large buildings
1930 DIN, wasn't Tesla first?
Hi! I just want to say that I very much enjoy your videos. Being blind, I appreciate people who are very descriptive and verbal. I can even understand your circuit diagrams quite well. Thank you very much. And the content is fascinating as well. again thank you very much.
iam not blind and aggree fully! this guy has such a calm and clear way of discribing complex electric facts that you feel like you fully understood any detail, what i want to say to you is that his videos (i dont know how blind you are) are as calm as his voice just a table, his hands and the stuff works, in this video mostly different fuses obviously ;)
i wonder how they are gonna read that
@@TheOneG36
"Check your fuses by breaking them open.." - That's now the H&S match factory went bust, "This one works. This one works. This one works..."
This one worked. This one worked. This one worked...
"So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this. So does this."
Yeah... Maybe just crack open one to see if it's legit or a cheap chinese one^^^
LOL
Nice mix of the technical and practical experience. Wish all teachers and lecturers could manage that. Thank you Clive.
When I was an apprentice and attending college once a week, all the lecturers were actual electricians, so they really knew what they were talking about and could elaborate on subjects in work related detail.
This isn't an explosion story (fortunately). I used to work in home improvements many years ago. I was building a furniture cabinet around the main circuit breaker/wall unit (the unit was in a plastic box) and while checking inside the box I saw something silver low down. When I shone my torch on it, I saw the broken end of a 25mm/1" masonry drill jammed fast against the mains cable. It looked like it had been there for years. Someone had tried to drill through the wall from the outside and somehow their guardian angel had caused six inches of drill to break off and save their life. It had gone through the live insulation and was just kissing the neutral. This was on the street side of the supply. The house owner went pale when I showed them their "time bomb". It would have blown eventually, spectacularly. Half the street had to be switched off for the operative to rewire.
Reading that it gives the impression that the driller got a bang and leapt of the ladder snapping the bit in the wall.
TV came to Australia in 1956, so as a 7 year old I watched it at a richer neighbour's house before we could afford one. I recall vividly the Saturday night in the middle of a WW1 aerial dogfight, the power going off. So all the kids followed Mr Dale out to his front porch fuse box to investigate the cause. A blown fuse of the self wrap type. he didn't have any, so he used a copper penny to bridge the gap instead. TV back on and everyone happy. The house is still there so I guess at some stage Mr Dale replaced the penny. Good video Clive.
Speaking of arcs faults, I've seen a MCC that was fed from a transformer with no protection at all on the secondary. It had an arc flash in a breaker, and the arc found it's way to the main bus bars. It incinerated 3 or 4 panels before the high voltage feed to the xformer tripped. It melted EVERYTHING! Cables, motor starters, sheet steel, copper bus bars... And the amount of soot it produced! And the smell!
At a different site I worked at there was a transformer of 525V to 400V and a few hundred kVA that was just installed. It was fed with two parallel 3-core cables, and the electricians managed to accidentally swap two of the phases on one of the cables, so it was a dead short. I was just working in the same room as the station that fed the xformer, I wasnt even supposed to be involved with the xformer stuff. But when they were about to switch it on I decided to shoo everyone out of the room anyway since it's a new install, and thus it's more likely something will go wrong. And kinda lucky I did... when they flipped the switch it was like a gunshot in the room! BLAM! A bunch of 630A fuses blew and an ACB tripped.
The smoke deposits are often also quite destructive to electrical contacts in the vicinity too.
Ya an arc guard unit is a cheap insurance to make sure it wont get that bad. I mean compared to losing weeks of revenue when the entire plant comes to a stop...
One thing that wasn't mentioned is that fuses often have a different interrupting voltage rating for AC and DC because a DC arc is harder to quench. A 250 VAC fuse might also be labeled as 32 VDC. Using that fuse for a 250 VDC circuit may also cause an exploded fuse, even though it would be fine for AC.
We're going to be able to age Clive's videos by how far that injury moves up his nail.
Maybe it's a sharpie mark? !
I saw that, I reckon it could be an arc burn....
@@conmcgrath7502 looks like a smashed thumb. Even the nail has growth patterns that suggest it was very painful 😬
that sharpie marker thing is probably where he drilled a hole in the nail (now it's the time to tell, that it's not sharpie, it's dry blood or scar tissue already) itself to let the blood out to relieve pressure and pain. itű's a good method to let the nail heal quicker, and also to relieve a lot of pain instantly.
Interesting subject BC. Your warnings about non-standard fusible links reminded me of the time when, a few nights after moving to a new house, we were plunged into darkness. In the fuse box in place of a cartridge I found silver paper wrapped round the remains of a charred matchstick.
You are correct about the HV fuse. The thin metal that runs alongside the soft alloy is for strength. The braided tail of the fuse passes over a spring loaded mechanism and is then clamped, this puts the fuse under tension. When the fuse blows the spring loaded mechanism releases and the carrier will then drop down from its mount via gravity and hang down. (im a lineman)
At some point I'll manage to scrounge an old cutout from the local utility company to make a video about.
We need to talk, I have questions that I need answers to! (What utility company and what state/country is it in??
I'm not sure what the European standards are, but the US has two color codes. The one typically used for 208 3 phase (120 phase to neutral) is black, red, blue for the 3 hot wires, white for neutral, and green for ground (black, white, and green match the 120V single phase color code). The other code (typically used for higher voltage 3 phase systems of 480V/277 phase to neutral or more), is Brown, Orange (or Violet), Yellow, Gray for Neutral, and Green for ground. However, the US NEC doesn't specify specific colors to be used except when one hot leg has higher voltage than the other two, and the ones that are used are industry practice/traditionally used.
Lineman eh? I'm a loadman
pmailkeey Same as domestic in the UK. Used to be Red, Yellow and Blue for three phase but is now Grey, Brown and Black (with Yellow/Green striped for CPC/Earth)
Dear Clive, You are amazing! Your videos save lives, illustrate beautifully why not to take short cuts and often just how not to make a simple problem worse. You honestly should be knighted ! Sir Clive
I recently used one of AmazonBasics' car 12V-to-5V USB adapters and the fuse in it blew while I inserted a Raspberry Pi. Turns out the transformer failed and converted to a car 12V-to-12V USB adapter - which isn't quite as useful as it was before if I'm being honest. Unfortunately, the fuse blew too late and my Pi released it's Magic Smoke™. To get to a point, this video helped me understand something about fuses, in particular about that little one. Thank you!
A friend was working at a computer centre that needed more power than the national grid would supply. There was a concrete outhouse with copper bus bars, I forget, but maybe 5cm by 2. He heard a bomb go off. A plasma bomb. A busbar had vaporised. God knows how much current it takes to vaporise copper that thick! The walls were coated with copper leaving shadows of other obstructions. Happily no one was in there. I find it very hard to believe that the tiny ceramic fuse you showed can support more than a thousand amps, but I trust you. I love the explosive cannon way of ensuring that contact is broken!
Oh, sod it, I'll stick my neck out. Can you point me to a fuse holder for that little ceramic fuse that can support 1,500 amps? What thickness of copper wire is it designed to accept? The contacts on my extension leads get fucked at around 10 amps, and that's two orders of magnitude higher! The mains entrance to my house is limited to less than 100 amps and needs copper wire far thicker than could be squeezed into that tube. I think you've made a mistake.
The 1500A breaking current is a worst case scenario and would be in the form of a very short pulse that may well damage the holder. If you consider the typical loop impedance to a UK socket would be around 1 ohm then the fault current in the case of a dead short would be a peak of about 330A.
My best effort was tripping 5 circuit breakers in one go. I wanted to see what would happen when you touch the earth wire to the active wire. Well, it was more exciting than I was expecting! Big boom and then house plunged into darkness. I had a 6 Amp circuit breaker connected to the wall outlet I was using for this experiment because I knew I was doing something dangerous, so of course that tripped. The 20 amp circuit break in the distribution board tripped, the RCD tripped and the main 40 amp circuit breaker tripped. After resetting all these circuit breakers I still had no power to the house! At first I was puzzled by this and the only other place I thought to look was the meter box which is located outside my house, and sure enough I found another 30 A (surprisingly low value) breaker tripped there too. Good to know the breakers work!
pmailkeey, faulty breaker? (100w bulbs or any halogen bulb that blow tend to take out our breaker, I guess it's when they ark inside the bulb they blow the breaker)
Why does your house have a 40 amp rated circuit if the incoming fuse to the house is only 30 amps? o_O
Szakembőr TV TMIAE, There are faulty fuses made sometimes, just the same as circuit breakers. Just two different ways of accomplishing the same task.
Better job than our oven made last week then, the upper element ruptured in 3 places & arced to it's casing. (So basically the same result as your experiment, hot to earth short except on the cooker circuit). That only tripped 2 RCD's...
@@tylisirn In the US the typical power input is ~220V to the meter. It is stepped down from there to the 110/120V that is used by most appliances, so a 30A breaker at 220V would have a higher power throughput than a 40A 120v circuit.
I didn't know that these letter indicators were used in other parts of the world :)
Seems to be the "standard" german norm, f for "Flink" -> fast, t for "Träge" -> slow, theres also M for "mittelträge" -> medium slow
Tobias Mädel echt?
But what if German nouns are in themselves chosen to correspond to markings rather than the other way around? After all, there's any number of words in German for fast and slow.
Nope. flink and träge are the correct words in this case. There are several more words which could be used to describe the same behavior but none that would be as accurate as fast or flink.
Siana Gearz Flink and Träge are the correct words indeed. We also use them in Belgium, where we don't speak German. (we would say "snel" and "traag" in Dutch which doesn't match those letters either)
Interesting :-)
Great video! Very informative. Your illustration at 21:00 happened to me years ago on an old Toyota car. I took that fuse out and back in half dozen times. Ended up towing it to my mechanic who promptly checked the fuse for continuity, replaced it and took pity on my ignorance and only charged me for the fuse! Doh!
William Garrett
I don't even look at fuses in cars. or any really. I put a meter on them either ohm or volt. if blown it will show a voltage across it. or connect to a ground and check for voltage all across it . if I'm still not sure. I go with the ohm meter!
@@jamest.5001 Yup... ohmmeter function on the meter is the best option. On rare occasions a weird fault can be traced to a 'high resistance' fuse. If your meter was in Continuity/Buzzer mode, then it would look like the fuse was ok, when in fact it was dropping a voltage across it due to e.g. 15ohm resistance....
When I worked for an American analyitical company, we had to carry both US (UL STANDARD) and UK fuses. There is a major dif in the spec for TD/slow blow fuses.
We had a cct bds that kept getting destroyed if something shorted. Turned out that we the slo blo US fuse could handle a far higher surge and we had to replace it with a far higher slo blo UK which didnt give enough protection. If you look it up I think its to do with the rupture voltage/current.EU fuses were dif also as was Austrailian. Ended up carrying so many types of fuses!
A friend once had a fuse blow in his truck, years ago. It was an old (70-something) pickup, so it used the clear glass tube fuses. He didn't have a spare on him, so he stuck a live .22 caliber rifle cartridge in the holder. It worked fine for about 5 years, but one day it overheated and fired, shooting him in the leg.
It was an effective audio-visual alert to say the least...
So you're saying this mythical story repeated across the internet for 20+yrs and featured+reproduced on mythbusters happened to your friend recently? Not impossible, but :doubt:
Had fun with the glass AGC fuses, applied heat to the end caps and removed them, replaced the fuse wire with a piece of ultra fine copper wire. Resealed the one end with wire in place and let it cool. Afterwards added a little black powder to fill half way and then stuffed a bit of paper towel in the tube to keep powder at one end. Fold over the copper wire over the tube and re soldered the cap back on. A quick continuity test to confirm all is ok. We used these in golf carts when we wanted to prank someone. They only went into a fuse holder under the bonnet so as not to allow fragments of glass to fly freely through the air. When the circuit is activated the mark will mess their pants when the fuse blows, goes off like a very loud firecracker. Kids don't try this at home!
My father started work at " OTTEYS " in Leeds after the war (2nd) and a farmer brought in a tractor with no lights. The standard fault finding procedure was to check the power to the light sockets by " flashing " the battery feed wire to the chassis, and when my dad did this a 22 bullet shot past his ear. The farmer had replaced the blown fuse with a 22 cartridge, I have since always regarded 22 bullets as " ffff Fuses " , super-fast, or ffs fuses ! if you get the translation.
I don't know about older, house fuses on THAT side of the pond, but in North America (115v 60hz) we used to have screw-in household fuses that were JUUUUUST the right size to put a copper penny in if one were to run out of fuses and the stores were closed. (you know... those Christmas dinners where you have a house full of guests!) :-D
I never did that and my father would never teach such a thing and my mind is "blown" that anyone would consider it! LOL
There were a few things in this video that I very much appreciated learning.
Thank you!!!
Dear BigClive, when I was a kid I used to take everything apart. And electrocuted myself off the mains by the age of 7. I wanted to do "Electronic things" but sadly I hit secondary school in 1993. This was the Tory era which had quite a devastating impact in my schooling.
I can say this for certain because the year before I started at secondary they had cut funding for electrical engineering at GCSE level. So for 5 years I made spatulas and ashtrays in a workroom that had embedded circuit testing and power supply's, and a pile of oscilloscopes in the store room, never to be touched. Some prick in Westminster obviously decided as our manufacturing had all but gone to cut the funding. I have never forgotten this... waste.
I finished school in 1998 with a good enough set of GCSE's and looked for an electrical apprenticeship here in Coventry. There were none. The nearest was Rugby and due to family circumstances I was forced out of home at 16 (strict parents, gay kid), it was economically and physically impossible for me to partake so I became an office donkey for the last 20yrs.
Ever heard of anyone training aged 35? I am not sure how much longer I can do these chicken coup jobs before a manager has an accident.
You can retrain at any age now. Ask at your local job centre or approach bigger electrical companies directly. Do you like mechanical stuff too? If you do, then consider approaching lift engineering companies. If all else fails try a big facilities management company as they will literally employ anyone. Remember to make it clear that you have a technical aptitude. You'll be starting at the bottom of the ladder again, but will climb quickly in a technical trade as you gain experience.
Cheers Clive, I had a collection of components, lego, and meccano. I was the only boy aged 9 with a 3 foot tall lego fortress that had electrical lighting and air conditioning lol, I miss those old torch bulbs, LED's are less steampunk. mechanical is cool. :)
Much appreciated.
Just interested how it has gone for you Armyofall after two years?
That's strange as in 1993 I did a Government-sponsored HNC electronic engineering course on a 6 month full-time basis - whereas there had been no training courses under the pre-90s Labour government...
Move to Australia and study at uni or tafe as a mature age student, the railway needs you
4000 plus views in less than 24hrs. That's impressive. I always reckon fuses are one of the most commonly misunderstood things in electricity, which I find worrying.
Great video Clive. I had first hand experience of the 'wrap some wire around the fuse' idiocy some years go, while working at a 132kV substation. The site manager was trying to scrounge a 32A HRC fuse link, because the one feeding his site portacabin 'kept blowing'. Unable to find yet another replacement, he stripped some 1.5mm2 flex and wrapped a couple of strands around the carrier in the fuse switch. On closing the switch, the resultant explosion blew the cover off, which hit him in the chest. Fortunately for him, he was not seriously injured. However, he did make a comical sight, as he had a very soot blackened face. He also had the embarrassment of having to get the local area board engineer out, as the fault had blown the 250A fuse that fed the main transformer coolers...
This morning I watched a 45 minute video about fuses and it changed my life, thank you brother.
Before WWII, German was the language of all engineers throughout the whole World. F stands for Flink and T stands for some other German word that I don't fully recall (trög in Swedish; "träg", "treg" or something similar in German). The same marking is used in other engineering applications than electronics, that's why I heard about it, despite not being an electrician.
T stands for träge
Apple uses fuses so reliable they still work perfectly after the circuit it was protecting has exploded. ;-)
Started cutting open Fusetrons (US Fuses) for motors, in the mid 70's to see if they blew from short circuit or just over-current. Fascinating. Once followed up a highly rated, cracker jack new guy that had used all 34 - 10-amp fuses in the storeroom, one at a time, thinking it would eventually fix a short circuit. Left it for me to fix on the night shift. Told him I can't save his butt; he used all the fuses. Then he said, "I used up all the 15's and 20's when I ran out of 10's. 😵💫The boss was mad at me because it had been down for 7 hours on afternoon shift, and 2 hours on midnights. I just smiled at him and said nothing, shaking my head as I walked away.
You're explanation for the HV fuse is almost right, the fuse element its self does not have enough clearance to expel a HV arc.
the fuse carrier is a V shape with a pivot connecting the two axis, this pivot has a spring to hold it in this position, when installing the fuse element you pull against the spring pivoting it into an L shape. the element tails simply wraps around a thread and are clamped down tight with a nut.
The now L shape fuse carrier is placed into the cut-out unit which is > shaped, the cutout is made of a dielectric material (ceramic or polymeric) with weather sheds (the zigzag shape). the cut-out has a metallic (usually brass and steel) top and bottom which are the contact points which conductors are attached to.
the fuse carrier is placed into the cut-out upside down and then flicked up and clicks into a spring loaded detent on the top metal contact of the cutout.
when the fuse element blows it is no longer apposing the spring on the pivot of the fuse carrier and the fuse carrier bents back into a V shape, it falls clear of the detent at the top of the cut-out and under gravity swings 180 degrees so it is upside down and hangs on the bottom peg of the cut-out, this provides the electrical separation needed for high voltage.
older designs do not have a spring loaded pivot and rely solely on gravity, because of this its not uncommon for a fuse to blow, create an arch between the top of the fuse carrier and cut-out which welds it into position, the element will melt clear however it is hard to identify a blown fuse as from the ground it is seemly still in tact.
a hanging fuse aids us in quickly spotting a blown fuse from large distances away with binoculars enabling us to narrow down potential fault locations. these types of overhead fuse units are typically used on T off spurs or above transformers. other forms of protection are used on main line.
I spat out my tea when you dropped the E.
And I didn't get it... at all
I think clive started rave culture and we just didnt know it.
Hekatombe, i'd gladly elaborate, but i can't find a way that would not get the video flagged.
This may help. th-cam.com/video/YFJdUJg4wOk/w-d-xo.html
Jesus thats the most painfully British thing i've seen since i just watched Techmoan cook back bacon.
Slight caveat for MV/HV current limiting fuses - there is usually a minimum as well as a maximum system voltage - ie 6/12kV. The reason for the 6kV minimum voltage is because they are designed with a particular arc voltage in mind. If you are using say a 3.3kV bit of equipment with a 6/12kV fuse there is a chance the equipment will be damaged by the high arc voltage if a fault occurs. In that case a 3/7.2kV fuse would be more suitable.
I just watched a great 27 minute video, then spent probably an hour and 27 minutes reading some of the funniest (or scariest) fuse stories ever. Brilliant!
Knew exactly where Big Fuse Little Fuse was going ... kill me
Would you care to enlighten me, a tiny bit appears to be missing from my education.
I need enlightenment as well.
Ooooh i was able to google it up, the missing keyword was 'fish'. Well, i'm not British so this escaped me.
Only thing I got was little fuse is a a brand name of fuses. It is spelled with the last L and E postions switched around.
th-cam.com/video/ADXv8VTVwHA/w-d-xo.html - Thank me later & you'll get the cringey reference...
Hi BC, great video, I will link it to some of my customers that like to "fiddle" with things. I did notice that the cheepie fuses appear to have the wrong or at least poorly refined sand in them. You mentioned that the sand is there to cool the arc, this is not strictly correct, the sand (high purity silica), turns to glass from the heat of the arc, forming a physical insulator in its path to quench it. Another great video I cringed when you started talking about the guy randomly jamming in contactors.
I should have researched that a bit more. The blown fuse had created hollow flat glass tubes around where the fuse elements had been.
You might like this. A video of what can happen if you put a fake BS1362 fuse into the type of plug where the fuse is inserted into a carrier in the base. th-cam.com/video/KVJVswLbqaA/w-d-xo.html It's only 6s long but makes the point very clearly.
Clive was basically correct, the latent heat of fusion of the sand absorbs the heat and keeps the temperature down to the melting point of silica which gives a whole new meaning to the term 'fuse'.
the small amount sand has little to no effect on the temperature, the purpose of the silica is to form an insulating glass barrier to quench the arc.
@bdf2718 It looks to me like the fuse broke the circuit just fine in that video. Where's the problem?
Great explanation of the workings of these fuses. Those big 160- and 400-Amp Lawson fuses have the kA rating stamped on them. Usually, 80 or 120 kA and 500 or 660 Volts.
I met a guy, an electrician by trade. He'd been working on something, I don't know the details offhand, and there was an explosion. His face and much of the front of his body were scarred up pretty badly. He's lucky to have kept his eyesight, I think.
We had a rather odd issue with the power in this house a while back. Some things worked okay, and some didn't, with no apparent pattern to it. I initially suspected that we'd lost a phase (two out of phase 120V lines and a neutral coming off the pole transformer), but the electric company was apparently able to see both of them getting to that "smart" meter from their end. It turns out that right after the feed from the meter into the house there was a box that had a couple of these monster fuses, 150A or something like that. Bigger than the largest of what you showed in this video. And that water had followed the wire down from the meter box and had gotten in there and started to corrode the innards of one of those two fuses. It eventually became a rather high resistance -- I could plug in some really easy low-power load but any attempt to draw nontrivial power on that leg was going to fail. Eventually we got somebody out here who found the problem, and replaced that fuse. The old one is down in the basement at the moment, and perhaps one of these days I'll get my hands on it and "take it to bits". :-)
It's been a really long time since I've used it, but one thing that I used to carry in my toolkit was a small circuit breaker, of the sort that can mount in a given panel in one hole, which had some clip leads attached to the terminals on the back of it. If I was working on something that kept on blowing fuses while I was trying to troubleshoot it, I'd connect that in across the fuse holder instead.
"They'd got the local dabbler in" 😂
I am a "local dabbler" and know my limits ... high power AC is something I'm not willing to fuck with
I think we missed big fish little fish on this side of the pond. Glad we did too.
I love the way you explain things and show us stuff that other TH-cam people forget about or just not interested in showing watches how things work . Keep it up as your one of the best channels to watch on TH-cam. Cheers from Australia
In telecom we had GMT and grasshopper fuses. When the fuse blew, sping tension would connect the battery side (-48VDC) to an alarm bus which would set off bells and lights in the central office. In the US Army, we rewired grasshopper fuses with correctly rated fuse wire so they could be used over again.
Thought you were going to show us the 15K fuse blowing :(
I'd need a suitably high voltage and current supply to make it blow out properly. However, here's a video of it happening:-
th-cam.com/video/ATEWXsMawMg/w-d-xo.html
That's Western Australia's official fuse testing department, Aussie Aussie Aussie pop bang zap. That is a dropout fuse, the fuse element Clive shows in his video is loaded in a ceramic tube under spring tension, when it blows the tension is released allowing the top latch to let go and the ceramic holder swings down out of the holder, so when you drive up the Street and see a fuse hanging down, it's blown. In Victoria we use HRC fuses with explosive charges in one end, the charge fires a 2" nail out the centre of the top cap to release the latch, unlike the West Aussie version they are a one shot device. I prefer the HRC version, they completely contain the arc, but mostly because the reusable ceramic tube gets coated internally with vaporised metal like the old S.E.R.Fuses did, so over time they become more likely to support an arc at least long enough to rain molten material down on the operator or long grass below causing injuries or bush fires.
That was pretty cool. And it led me to about 200 more videos.........got to bed about 4 hours late lol
Funny you should mention "raining molten material" as this video reminded me of a story I was told by a high school teacher... The original school building was built with the hot and neutral lines properly oriented, an addition was added on with all of the hot/neutral reversed, and when they threw the switch on the sub panel to turn power on to the addition, light fixtures exploded, molten copper and broken glass raining down from the ceilings... Somebody got their butt chewed out over that, I guarantee it!
My grandmother's house (built in the 1960s) has roughly half of the house wired properly, the other half with hot/neutral reversed. I learned this the hard way by plugging my stereo receiver into one outlet and a turntable into a different outlet on a different fuse. Hit the power switch, and immediately was left with a 20-lb brick with all output transistors literally blown wide open. Fun stuff.
Anyone have photoinduction's number?
I got given an old welder a few years back, never plugged it in though, but I did open the plug, someone took a 13 amp fuse, soldered some 30 amp rated copper wire across it, and closed it up, and left it, rather than use a proper 16 amp or 32 amp plug & socket with a dedicated protected feed, the stupidity of some people can be scary... :S
Oh, and the welder had old-colours 3-core flex for the welding-side connected to the clamps, rather than appropriate cable, so the welder just sits in my yard shed holding down the one side incase of excessively strong winds... :P
twocvbloke I think that's the proscribed fix for a blown fuse in a welder, but a nail also works very well and no more pesky nuisance tripping.
'til the main fuse before the meter's blown, of course... :P
twocvbloke nails work there too !
That is until the substation goes pop... :P
twocvbloke you got me there
I had a variable transformer from China rated for 20A which kept blowing fuses and getting too hot to touch during operation. Then one day it failed for good making it impossible to remove the fuse. When I disassembled it, I found they'd used a fuse holder rated for 15A. I installed one rated for 20A (had to modify the enclosure) and it's run cool and flawlessly since. The fuse holders are an important part of the system too.
Just had to replace a T3.15A and released these are a nightmare to purchase other than online. As usual I felt the urge to find out more about these fuses as I'd always assumed they were 'just fuses' and never realised there was such a thing as quick or slow blow fuse, anyway I thought of bigclivedotcom as I was typing in the search bar and sure enough he popped up to save the day, thanks Clive, and for the humour, great teacher by the way.
By shear coincidence, I was watching this video when the power went off to my RV. I reset the breaker and returned to the RV. I then noticed on the built-in digital volt/amp meter I installed that the RV was pulling over 24 amps AC on a 20 amp breaker. I had forgotten to turn off the electric water heater that morning and was running the air conditioner that afternoon. After a couple of hours the hot water in the water heater finally cooled enough to trip the thermostat and restarted the heating element. Oops. Too much current draw. I turned the water heater off. I must add a pilot light to the water heater switch that reminds me to turn it off when it is not needed!
You could fit a changeover switch to select between hot water and AC.
Excellent idea. Normally, the 29' American RV ("caravan" for those in the EU) is designed to run on 30 amps and it is not a problem to have two, 12 amp things going at the same time. However, at my current location there is only 20 amps available so I must be more careful about what and how many things are turned on at the same time. (I changed most of my lights to LED's to save power, too.) Thanks for the reply!
how's living in an RV like? I come from a really small country so its not possible but i just love the idea of living in an RV.
@@bigclivedotcom That would be a good idea.
@@bigclivedotcom Too bad. He's not in Do United Kingdom.
I'm in the United States though.
But I know about this.
You know in the United Kingdom to have those electric showers.
Water heating shower heads were wall mount units with the handheld shower with at water heater in the big box.
They make a switching device. That would choose between one ordered shower or another we don't have the capacity to run two of them.
That could be hooked between the air conditioning in the water heater.
To automatically select either water heater or air conditioning.
Could have a bit of a modification. To allow one or the other manually. As well.
I had a problem back when I was in the US Army. You see, I thought that if someone was in communications, as I was, they would know a little bit about electricity, since that is what we dealt with on a daily basis, well that isn't necessarily so, as I learned one day down at Fort Bliss Texas. I was stationed, at the time, with the Battalion Headquarters Communications Section, and was a Sergeant in charge of a Radio Teletype section. The unit had a nice sort of hut that we scrounged from the Motor Pool, it was designed for hauling the tools out in the field to fix large vehicles, so was very roomy. Myself and another Sergeant decided that this would make one hell of a nice communications hub for our unit, so we went about mounting the FM radios, some AM sets, and the Switchboard so everything except the Teletype could be run out of one place. We even included the message center so documents could be dropped off and sent to the proper location either by radio, or runner. Now this is in the Texas Desert and things get damn hot, so I decided to purchase a nice 24 volt fan and mount it in a small port that happened to be the right size. I sent two of my men down with the fan, and told them to install the fan and a toggle switch to turn it on and off. They were gone for about a half hour, and returned with what had been the switch, now with one leg burned off, and burn marks all over the bottom. Well I figured, too many amps, so I gave them a larger more powerful switch and sent them back down to the motor pool to install the new switch. They returned with the same results, only more damage. Now I was getting pissed, these were two guys well trained in the operation of both radios and telephones, they should damn well be able to install a simple toggle switch, so I grabbed another toggle switch and returned to the motor pool with them. They showed me where they were installing the switch, it was then that I realized they had no concept of DC electricity. They had twisted the wires together, plus to plus, minus to minus, then put the plus side on one terminal, the minus on the other, thus running the power from two very large 12 volt batteries that started the deuce and a half truck through that little switch, no wonder the switch did no good. I showed them how to properly install the switch on one side of the circuit, and suddenly we could turn on that nice cooling fan with no problem We all three learned something that day, they learned a bit about DC Current, and I learned a bit about leadership of the every day soldier who was trained in only some aspects of communications.
Guess I neglected to mention that the hut was designed to ride on a 2 1/2 ton truck, much like pickup campers do today on pickups.
Hi, and thanks. The ultra-fast "FF" fuse would be more properly called a meter fuse, or just a quick-blowing fuse.
A fuse that protects a semiconductor must be current limiting, which means at least a sand-filled case. It's not just the speed but the ability to hold the short circuit peak at a relatively low current that provides protection. And FWIW, they cost a fortune, often made of silver.
........ The author of this channel is a Gentleman and a Scholar . (Despite what ITERPOL says).
...... Teaching skills underrated .
I got a bit conFUSEd
I hate you
What do you call a fake fuse?
.
.
.
.
ConFused
Wired you do that?
AL_O0 Please amp it up! :D
Did it BLOW your mind?
Dropping an E in your disco light teardown room / test house would be a scinario to tell the grandkids about
Everyone who works in electronics retail should watch this. I work in a certain Australian electronics retailer, and there is zero training given on this kind of stuff. We're expected to know before we start, or learn on the job. On the plus side, watching this reveals I haven't been making any mistakes, but I was doing the right things for the wrong reasons. For example, I thought ceramic fuses were primarily for higher temperature applications, where a glass fuse would consistently blow below its stated current. That misconception didn't lead to any catastrophes, but it's still better to know that's not the case, now.
Stellar vid (unsurprisingly). One thing I may have added though, is the actual purpose of the fuse. They are not intended to protect equipment downstream, but rather the upstream supply and infrastructure. This is actually a subtle but interesting distinction.
Thanks bigclive very helpful tips for fuse
I had no idea ceramic fuses were full of sand. Big Clive strikes again.
On my desk at work, I keep one of the spare fuses for an unused three-phase panel. It's made by Littlefuse. It's got a particularly interesting way to indicate when it's blown, which I thought was worth mentioning. It has a little plastic window on the side. Behind the window, there's a little strip of what I presume is something like thermal printer paper. The strip has a very thin wire wrapped around it. I presume there's a standard fusible wire inside the main housing, but when that breaks, all the current has to pass through that tiny wire, which will either pop and scorch the slip, or heat it up and burn it. I'm guessing that because it says on the fuse to replace it if the indicator has any black on it.
I've been very, very tempted to crack the thing open and see how it works. It's a shame it's one of our spares.
"you have to use a fuse that is rated for the voltage it will be operating under", what a revolutionary insight :D
Every single time I buy a pinball machine, most of the fuses are the wrong value. Its also very common to find fuses that have had a wire soldered across them. It infuriates me because of the damage it causes to wiring, melted solenoids, shorted out rectifiers that then go on to kill pcbs. Melted transformers etc. Arrrrrgh
Yeah, arcade techs weren't noted for their technical skills.
Soldering a wire across ? That's fancy, use a nail !!!!
We use nails in europe because we have nothing better. I am told that in the US it is common to put bullets in fuse holders... /s
1/8 copper fridge pipe can be substituted for a 13 amp fuse. As I found it in a freezer control panel 'protecting' the anti-condensation heaters. Needless to say I replaced it with a proper fuse. Anyone fancy a guess as to what the rupturing current would have been?
Pete Moss to actually do any protection? A few hundred thousand amps would probably blow something apart enough to break the arc.
Electromagnetic fuse, that would be something. :)
@@0x8badf00d mate, I think you just invented a circuit breaker in your head
I felt that you missed a very important factor to consider also... The wires in the circuits are usually of a size that should not exceed the current of the circuit as well. My dad was one that would wrap a fuse with foil from his cigarette pack. (smoking can kill you in several ways). This is ok if you know that a fuse popped for a reason like a short that was caused by something erroneous. But you must replace this foil bypass as soon as possible or heaven to bid, you will have a short the burns all the wires from the source to the panel!. He would also put a penny under the screw-in type fuses as we were always short on those! Thanks for a wonderful series of educational videos!
What an overall pleasant man I have found to help me understand electronics/electricity! Clive, you are amazing! Don't change anything you don't want to!!
A “short” video about fuses… I see what you did there...
I'm happy to know that my co-worker at the hardware store I work at is in fact full of shit with regard to fuses.
I like to listen to your explanation about the different components that exist in electronics. love your work
Thing is ive learned more from this channel than any electrical place ive read
F U L L B R I D G E R E C T I F I E R!
They should fill it with glitter.
This reminds me of the time I was on Work Experience with a local electrician, and one of his employees, a fully qualified sparky, was sent on an early morning job at a car dealership (also did mots etc) but they said they couldn't have power off because of their computers, so he decides to this "quick job" live. He accidentally dropped his pliers (wire cutters I forget now) while working on a three phase fuse box live, shorted out some terminals and blew all three of the fuses on the incoming mains to the building. As well as gave himself temporary blindness from the flash it made.
Great video, this should be mandatory viewing for all sparks.
I work with electronic control systems, I regularly come across faults where sparks have been called out, found a blown fuse and thrown in whatever they have in their bag.
It's not fun having to tell the client that instead of replacing a damaged cable and a fuse that they now have to replace the entire control panel, cable and fuse.
The letters on glass fuses actually do come from real reference: F stands for Flink, T stands for Trage. Not the whole world comes from english :p
Träge :-) Trage would be a strecher...
Jeah you have to write träge, that its an real german word ;)
In the US, it is used in hospitals to refer to the emergency room. Quite appropriate.
@@rich1051414 No that would be "triage" (French) which is the process of sorting of patients according to the urgency of their need for care. Triage can be performed ANYWHERE there are multiple people injured (military conflicts for example) and does not simply refer to an "emergency room".
My take from this is, just use the right size penny.
I like the longer 30ish minute videos because they have little tangents of knowledge explaining all the nuances.
I knew off the cuff all the standard fuses (ie., HRC, slow blow for the inductive spike on start ups, NTC/PTCs etc), but I don't work on mains-level components. so when I saw the bi-metallic strip and thought "oh it must just be like an RTD" and it clearly was not, thus illustrating your "mishaps due to overconfidence" scenario beautifully.
(Though, had I actually realistically been in a situation to design or remediate something similiar (rather than just watching this in a recreational capacity whilst eating lunch, I would immediately look up the application notes from at least a few reputable vendors such as Eaton or what have you -- the point stands. Moar videos like this!!!!)
Also, I had mistakenly thought that IP67 87v's were explosion proof (i.e., while working in a dangerous environment, the meter will not contain any component to escalate the danger level). I had then quickly remembered this was only the case for the red-enclosure versions 87v and 28i -- both designated by Fluke as 'instrinsically safe'.
Standard US military issue from Fluke was the 27/FM, which were available on ebay for pennies (comparatively) a few years ago before. They had upgraded all of their staff with 28ii at the same time, and flooded the market with top-quality 27/FMs from the surplus suppliers. People were getting entire units with cases, high voltage probes and 8 month old calibration stickers, for less than the price of retail high voltage probes.
The first digit of the IP is for dust and particulate ingress (6 being dust-proof), the second digit indicating water-proof up to a certain pressure (7 being at least 3 minutes of at 12.5kPa at 10 litres a minute of flow, 6.3 nozzle dia -- 8 being 3 minutes @100kPa @ 100 l/m, 12.5mm nozzle dia). At standard pressure, '7' works out, 'waterproof' up to a meter of water at SATP under 3 feet of water load for no less than 30 minutes)) '8' being essentially hermetically sealed.
In practice, an IP 68 rated piece of kit will most likely be explosion proof, but there are special class, division, and group designaters (materials, autoflammability, etc) must actually be matched properly to the environment to ensure safe usage.
Clive, that was probably the best video you have done. You were very accurate regarding replacing fuses with the correct type. I work in the medical device industry, fuses are a big issue. The precise rating and type is critical. I liked the way you demonstrated the Chinese rip off against a Pound Land fuse (I will have to look in there when I am next in the UK).
Many thanks for a very good and accurate video.
Why does it look like you have a hole in your nail? or do you.
No hole. Just a black dot from a slight impact at work.
Did you know that "CE" actually means chocolate ėclair?
Wow that's the best one i have seen yet!
I still prefer China Export.
Bernd Felsche haha
Less amusingly, I have suggested it means "Consumer Equipment", i.e. not industrial or commercial grade.
30+ years of industrial maintenance and design, and I approve this message.
I do free lance stuff on machinery nowadays and you wouldn't believe how many people will pay me a couple hundred dollars to come change their fuse.
I usually leave s $30 Lowe's Depot continuity tester in the control panel and spend about three minutes teaching someone to use it.
I also tell them what fuses to replace it with, and what to stay away from.
I have customers with real problems that I need to address. and being called out to a silly bullshit situation is something I can do without.
I have found if you have glass fuses with pigtails for soldering, always ohm the fuse after heat has been applied. Quite often the glue that holds the caps to the glass tube will soften. While soft, any stress on the assembly will go through the filament which may break near the cap where you can't see it.
I am watching a video that will reach 1 million views
Do Clive's videos do that occasionally?
Check BC's video listings. Fanny Flambeaux probably tops 2 million by now, and I suspect that the more recent vape device will hit 1 million soon.
I found the content of the video much more interesting than the number of views you expect.
Aaah true enough RWBHere, slipped my mind. The videos "200kW miracle power saving device", "A simple guide to electronic components", "Testing dodgy 100W LEDs from eBay sellers", "eBay Floodlight scam warning" and "Make your own nicotine-free e-liquid" have between 1 Mio and 2 Mio views. Fanny Flambeaux is bordering on 3 Mio now. Pretty uncommon, but this video is well in line... then again, i would have thought the general soldering and soldering irons video could have been popular, and it wasn't particularly.
Siana Gearz who says mio? I've never heard anyone refer to million as "mio" unless its not English which im assuming is the case
Fuses are one of those topics that I thought I knew everything I needed to know about them when I left school. Now, more experienced, I know there is a lot about them that I do not know. You can get into some pretty detailed engineering when you start getting to the details. Glass time delay fuses are also kind of fun when in a low over current condition. You'll look into a peice of equipment and be suprised that there's a light on until you realize it's the fuse glowing incandescently.
Those were not evacuated that I know of; A really eager DIY can try clipping 0.80 Aluminum Foil down to the needed ma rating; There is a video up on YT about how breakers throw and it looks to me to be a common switch but electrician try to tell me not to do that as it is supposed to have limited number of operations; In many places where I have worked a 200 amp panel is where they switch many lights - they go decades with no failure
Thank you for posting this. It's crazy how little info is out there that encompasses all types of fuses.
It's a very important and very over-looked subject in electrical/electronics. A fuse may seem mundane but it's an important part of any circuit. Thank you Clive.
Thank you.
This was a good review.
I have been careful when connecting up equipment. And double and triple check connections. Never had a serious problem.
Sometimes, I had to drive 12 miles to get the right fuse or part.
I have no desire to be involved in a disaster.
Thanks again.
Very helpful lesson with massive applications especially in equipment/component power management. Simply brilliant and extremely insightful examples. Thanks.
I still get a good laugh watching the cardboard box followed by the ‘E’ joke. What a sight it must have been to see this enormous man pilled up at a rave party. 😂
Wow, what a great video! It cleared up some long-standing confusion I had about ratings and types of fuses, and was entertaining, too!
I was on a tour once where I had a dimmer rack and a few distros on a 400 amp three phase service.
While we were doing our load in, the the whole building goes out, and the emergency lights come on.
Main power comes back on soon after, and some guys come out saying that my racks blew a fuse on one leg, and that in turn tripped the whole building.
I told them that if my racks had a short big enough to blow a fuse, then we would've known about it, and I was only drawing a few amps at the time as well.
They were annoyed, and complained that a fuse costs hundreds of dollars. I assured them that everything on my end was fine.
They put in a new fuse, powered it on, and we went about the rest of our day just fine.
Sometimes shit just gets old and dies.
I have one of those 400A Lawson fuses. I found it discarded by the fence in a substation. The date on it was 1988, so I'm surprised I even found it.
More gold from Clive. Lots of talk about tripping. Educational and entertaining. °~°
I like learning from your channel you explain things so well better then my high school professor....
This is the only channel using printouts as visuals, it's genious.
I use NTC thermistors (the opposite of those shown in video, resistance falls as they heat) to soft start sub 200W DC motors. I'll circuit them around a 1 or 2 second time delay relay to give a smooth sexy ramp up in speed before hitting the motor with full power. This is a great way to handle inrush limits in many power supplies.
I have a microwave oven that blows its internal fuse every few months. The original fuse was a time-delay 20-amp fuse (bear in mind that appliances that use more than 15 amps in the US must have a NEMA 15-20P plug on them). I decided to measure the load current and the thing is drawing 21-23 AMPS during use! I'm guessing the transformer probably has a couple windings shorted on the primary or something, because this thing acts like the magnetron is way over-powered. It'll heat a cup of water to a full boil in 1 minute, though, so I'm not complaining too much about it! XD
Thanks BigClive.... I listened through the whole song, and you're ravin' mad.
Wow just think I thought I knew a lot about this subject to be schooled once again. Thanks for doing these videos. Your a good teacher and I learn something new on all of your videos. Even what to and not to eat and drink lol. Keep up what you are doing my brother, I appreciate it.
I have seen one case where the power supply has failed in a chain reaction -- one faulty MOSFET shorted out, it got hot, melted its legs, shorted nearby components, created even bigger short, mains voltage got involved, plasma was created and everything exploded. Yeah. Literally.
The whole motherboard had trillions of blown capacitors and electronic components (even inductors exploded, that's how serious the fault was)
Not even one component or module survived -- graphics card (I think it was GTX Titan), hard disk, SSD, mouse, keyboard, monitor, motherboard, power supply, monitor's power supply, buttons and LEDs were all welded and/or severely damaged.
I went there and the first thing I could see was that the main breaker was tripped, and there was a stench of burning plastic coming from that person's room.
It was a sight to behold; everything was dead. I even saw the speaker malfunctioning because of the incident.
Oh, and you ask me which part of it is related to this video?
The person was so "clever" that this person either replaced the fuse with a thick jumper wire or bought the Shenzhen variant with "wire fuse".
The packaging did say it was Corsair 1200W PSU, but I suspect it was recycled/had botched repair done not by official repair service.
By the way, this person was using industrial power (220V 150A maximum here) because the setup was in a workshop.
You are blowing Weller's mind right now. They are just learning about these new fuse devices and how to incorporate them into their products.
Thanks for this great tutorial. Sending the link to each of the folks that work with me as well as the supervisor.
BigClive .... just for completeness you might have mentioned that some HRC fuses have a fuse blown indicator.
This is a second, finer fuse-wire, passed near to the surface of the ceramic body .... this will blow instantly after the main fuse-wire and will burn out in a small powder-filled pocket at the surface, indicating that the fuse had blown.
Love your videos.