Alternatives to fuses?

Re: Alternatives to fuses?

Trees as fuses? (Some NSFW language)
Why big fuses pop.
[video=youtube_share;yTdngnsyNSE]http://youtu.be/yTdngnsyNSE[/video]

Re: Alternatives to fuses?

Neighbour of mine once showed me his "fuse", it was a short length of 12 guage solid copper wire, bare of course. His theory, (which I couldn't condemn because he knew everything and I knew nothing) was that if there was a short, his "fuse" would burn off before the rest of the 12 guage copper wire in it's own proper insulation would have a chance to overheat. In another case, a student electrician "fixed" a blown screw in fuse by peeling back a strip of the copper threaded portion, and folding it down over the bottom "button" before screwing it back into the socket. Of course the old folks used to speak of this one or that one who would take out a blown fuse, insert a penny into the socket, then screw the blown fuse back in to hold the penny in place. And then there was the case of kids hooking wires over the bare wires from a transformer to light the bulbs strung over their skating rink. Of course all was OK because the transformer was fused on it's 25,000 volt input side and there was totally no fear of their strings of lights ever develop a short circuit.
Oh! And I almost forgot! When I was a kid, the electric meters were not water proof/rain proof, so were himg on the wall inside the house. When the lady of the house decided to do her ironing or boil the kettle, she was trained to "hang the meter". The meter was hung on the wall by hooking it over a screw. Lift it off the screw and let it hang upside down by it's wires, and the rotating disc would jam, preventing it recording any use of electricity. Of course there was always the danger of one of the wires eventually breaking off, and that did happen from time to time as solid copper can only be flexed so many times, or the meter reader showing up before the meter could be put back in it's tightful place, but those were the costs of getting free electricity.

Re: Alternatives to fuses?

There was a "smart" elementary school custodian who "solved" the problem of cartridge fuses constantly blowing on an air conditioning unit. He replaced them with 1/2" pieces of copper pipe. These "no-blo" fuses sure did the trick. The wiring in the building burned up instead.

I worked with an other electrical engineer once who had a fuse in his mid 70's impala keep blowing. He said he was going to replace the fuse with a bolt so then the offending circuit would burn instead so he could find the problem. I told "special Ed" (His nickname after blowing up $5K worth of Computer IO equipment) "Yeah, sure it will work, and will also probably melt your main harness, at it's thickest point, right behind everything in the dash you cannot get past..."

It's amazing that people do not understand that the fuse is there to protect the wiring, and that if it is constantly blowing, there is a problem somewhere that needs to be addressed...