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JON O'BOYLE: Standard fuse cutout barrel. Now what can you tell me about this one one? STUDENTS: It's blown.
O'BOYLE: Right, this is the wire that carries the current. When it sees too much current, it burns through and just
melts and drops. When you come in, you see this thing hanging down
like this, you know you've got a problem. This wire has seen a fault
and it has opened up to protect the rest of the system further up stream.
This little wire burns through so you don't have a transformer blow up or the
conductor burn through. It is just another safety measure. Now if you
open up, this is your fuse barrel cap
At the bottom here, you have a little
rating for what size fuse it is. Can you see that one?
STUDENT: 10 O'BOYLE: 10. That's a 10 amp fuse.
You have different ones, you have quick action and you have slow action. Advantages of the quick action
is that it will go right out, right away, when it sees a fault.
The problem with that is you get more nuisance faults. More things, just like a branch,
falling across that happen to trip it out. That's a transient fault that probably would have cleared
itself in a second anyways. But you have slower action fuses too that take
more time. You can throw this in, hop in your truck, think that you have the problem
fixed and about the time you start your truck up, bam, you hear that cannon go off
and that fuse barrel drops back down.
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