Safety: Don't forget to FUSE those wires!

[L33T35T Tacoma]

I saw first had tonight what happens when you don't fuse aftermarket wiring. My buddy has an Xterra and recently bought an 800 watt power inverter. He hard wired it to the battery up front, and ran 4AWG wiring from the battery in the passenger front corner of the compartment, towards the firewall, across the firewall, through the firewall, down the driver side under the carpet, and finally in to his trunk area to the inverter. Well last night, after dinner, we all piled in to his Xterra while he lit up a cigarette really quick. Within a minute, there was smoke billowing out from under the hood of his truck. I warned him to NOT open the hood as it will just add oxygen to the fire. By the time the fire department got there it had burned itself out. there was a small area that kept trying to relite, so we doused it in a 2 liter bottle of pepsi. that was fun.

Long story short, the wire grounded out near the driver rear door, under the carpet, where he spliced the 4AWG wire to the wire that comes with the power inverter. When one of us got in the car, we must have stepped on that area and disturbed it. The wire burned from the battery all the way back to the splice. Luckly, the truck was fine and no damage was done other than his washer fluid hose disappeared in the fire.

DID I MENTION HE DIDN'T HAVE A FUSE INSTALLED!?!

Fuse it or lose it!

[wifesaysimadumbass]

holy crap lucky the whole truck didn't burn! But you guys need to use a real lighter to light your doobies next time

[corax]

Glad your buddy's truck didn't burn to the ground.

I've really taken to these resettable circuit breakers for anything over 30 amps. I've seen them sized from 35 -150 amps . . .
http://fortheroad.hcpus.com/images/categories/HCB-100.jpg

[paddlenbike]

...and I heard smoking is bad for you.

[Obi..]

Glad your buddy's truck didn't burn to the ground.

I've really taken to these resettable circuit breakers for anything over 30 amps. I've seen them sized from 35 -150 amps . . .
http://fortheroad.hcpus.com/images/categories/HCB-100.jpg




I remember mentioning those a while back..pretty sweet huh? :D I have them for the boat now to. ;)

[Seanz0rz]

im working on slowly replacing all of my fuses with the drop in mini breakers.

http://order.waytekwire.com/scategory2/M50/140/100/Circuit%20Breaker%20Blade%20Type/Circuit%20Protection/

this way any fault can be reset instead of replacing a fuse. i will be replacing my most common blown fuses with those soon, then working through the rest of the fuse box.

[troyboy162]

oh and dont forget to fuse them on the positive wire near the battery lol. i got done alot of wiring one time and then noticed id fused on the negative line

[Crinale]

oh and dont forget to fuse them on the positive wire near the battery lol. i got done alot of wiring one time and then noticed id fused on the negative line
oops :chair:

[L33T35T Tacoma]

More info on the circut breakers? I'll pass the info on

[corax]

More info on the circut breakers? I'll pass the info on


I can usually find the type I posted above at Car Audio stores and maybe Radioshack, but the cheapest ones are in Ebay . . . search for "12V circuit breaker" (http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=12v+circuit+breaker&_sacat=See-All-Categories)

[DHC6twinotter]

im working on slowly replacing all of my fuses with the drop in mini breakers.

http://order.waytekwire.com/scategory2/M50/140/100/Circuit%20Breaker%20Blade%20Type/Circuit%20Protection/


Woah, those are pretty awesome!

[04 Rocko Taco]

the circuit breakers are cool, fuses are important... but so is proper wiring (which DOES include fuses) but it is a lot harder to short out a properly prepared and finished splice. Not knocking your buddies wiring, just saying.... if it had been soldered, taped, and heat shrinked, its a LOT harder to short out.

[corax]

oh and dont forget to fuse them on the positive wire near the battery lol. i got done alot of wiring one time and then noticed id fused on the negative line


One time that you would should have both positive and negative fused is when you run the ground wire for a radio directly to the battery. When I bought my first 2M Ham radio I was surprised that both leads were fused. The thinking is that if the battery ground fails, any vehicle current would then try to go from the grounded antenna base, through the coax to the radio and on to the battery - essentially turning your 14ga ground wire into a light bulb filament

[CJM]

I use those circuit breakers alot and love them.

I had a 50 amp one that went from the line I ran + of the batt SPLICED then back to the fuse block I mounted. Ultimate protection right there, never failed me when I wired up everything from sound systems to lightbars. Trick is to make all your splices clean and wrap them with elec tape or heat shrink them or both, dont splice anywhere it could be disturbed (as you found out) and use largeer gauge wiring than you think you will need. I love the wiring kits that come with stuff, the gauge of the wire is soooo tiny its not even funny.