When to use Fuse or Auto Reset breaker

Use a Auto reset breaker on your trailer electric brakes ETC.

Cheers.

The third option to consider is a manually resettable breaker, no running out of fuses

Gooday Ken ; I think your right in what you say 1 & 2 good point , I think circuit berakers are more in the way of 20 amp plus ??? I had a auto elec wire up spoties & put in a circuit breaker on high current side !!!

cheers nick

Hi Ken,

The reason for any protection, fuse or circuit breaker, is to disconnect a circuit where the current is exceeding a safe value and so avoid further damage and possibly fire. The application of an automatically resettable circuit breaker is normally restricted (in industry and domestic applications) to incorporation within appliances where an overload, as distinct from a fault, may occur. This may for example be a portable tool or battery charger. It is not a good idea to use auto-resettable protection with unsupervised loads as the repeated re-application of the supply may cause further damage than the original fault.

I would consider it best to be made aware of a fault by a blown fuse or opened manually-resettable circuit breaker than to have an auto-resettable breaker continue to repeatably apply power until the battery was flat or something worse occurs.

My preference is for manually resettable breakers where the circuit is rated above 10 Amps and appropriate fuses where the circuit is rated below 10 Amps.

I am not at all sure about protection for winches where the current is up to several hundred Amps. A circuit breaker capable of this would be very expensive and of questionable protective value. Some winches may incorporate protection by means of internal thermal sensing which controls the contactor (solenoid) but otherwise it is left to the operator to judge if the motor is reaching its temperature limit. A fusible link (really just a high-rated fuse) could be used in the winch supply cable to protect against a short-circuit but may well not discriminate between maximum winch current and a short-circuit. I would prefer a manual isolator installed at the battery to be closed only when actually using the winch. This has distinct advantages against catastrophic short circuit and possible fire in the event of a front-end collision.

Hi Ken
Use a autoreset circuit breaker for your trailer brakes!!!!! If you have a short that clears itself( eg. a wire rub through) you will still have brakes after it resets itself. if its a fuse you only get one chance.
Normally you will hear a chattering/buzzing noisecoming from the circuit breaker if the short continues.

Heres what Tekonsha say about the Overload indicator on a Prodigy.


Attention: Technical Support
From:
Subject: Prodigy error codes

When a Prodigy comes up with an Overload code o.L What would cause this please as the manual doesnt give any indicaton. Thanks



Thank you for contacting Technical Support. In response to your email, the OL code is present mainly because there is a problem somewhere along the electric brake wire. I would inspect the trailer wiring looking for broken wires, or spots where wires could have wore through as well as inspecting brake magnets for possible failure. If you have any questions or need further assistance feel free to write back or contact us at (888) 785-5832.



Technical Service Agent

Cequent Performance Products, Electrical Division

101 Spires Parkway

Tekonsha, MI. 49092

(888) 521-0510

Monday-Friday 8:00 AM-4:30 PM Eastern Time







From: TekonshaWebsite@tekonsha.com [mailto:TekonshaWebsite@tekonsha.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2011 2:45 AM
To: Tech Support
Subject: Tekonsha® Website : Contact Form Message (Technical Support)



The following message has been sent from the Tekonsha® website: