How To Replace An Electrical Fuse ?

In: Home & Family

12 Nov 2009

A fuse is a single phase device that is employed in almost every electrical circuit for protecting them against overload conditions. It is basically the weakest point or link in a circuit that burns out before any other expensive electrical appliance. Thus, it acts as a safety device that checks for circuit overloading and overheating of wires.

The basic function of an electric fuse is to prevent healthy part of the circuit from being damaged and to limit the damage to the faulty sections or items to the lowest possible level.

A fuse consists of one or more current carrying elements, depending on their current ratings. Whenever an excessive over current flows through them, the conductor melts that results into the blowing of fuse. Since, there is no way to fix or repair a blown fuse, you need to replace it.

Replacing a fuse doesn’t mean that you need to call an electrician, in fact you can yourself do the task without any much difficulty. Switching off the power supply is the first and foremost step that should be considered while replacing a fuse. Next, comes the task of removing the blown fuse and inserting the new one. While doing so, make sure that you are replacing it with that of similar rating.

Even if replacing a fuse is a very small job, there’s still a potential to danger and yo must use caution. We must always take remember to care and to follow some simple rules. Don’t go for replacing the fuse with wet hands. Make sure, your hands are not wet while doing the job. Secondly, replace the blown off fuse with a good one without touching the metal terminals or use proper tools like pliers and screwdriver etc.

Condition generally arrives that after the electricity is restored and you have not turned on the devices, but still the fuse blows off. Then there is a defect in your home wiring system or your appliance connections are wrong. And hence, you need to hire a professional for this job.

Fuses protect electrical devices, components and circuits from over currents and short circuits. In addition to this, high reliability is one of the major advantage of using the fuse for over current protection. These are capable of limiting the overloads to only single circuit thus minimizing the danger of fire. Other benefits include circuit breaking and relatively low cost.

Nowadays, fuses are a nondetachable part of electrical systems in automobiles, boats, motor cycles and other vehicles. Additionally, these are now employed in integrated circuits to provide redundancy and programming capabilities.

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