Inline fuses again(trawler fans)
South Pacific Familyadventure 2008
Claes Brodin
Sun 19 May 2019 14:11
The VHF was completely dead when tested and since the Eberspächer installation required some electrical work in the area my first though was a blown inline fuse. Having my share of problems with inline fuses on Dora Mac I feared the worst regarding finding it.
In Turkey 2015 we lost cooking ability since the Xintex propane controller lost power. The inline fuse was never found and still today the propane controller relies on power from a light bulb switch.
Our Balmar major alternator frequently loses charging due to bad contact in an inline fuse (oxidation of bad qualitymetal),and when we lost our AIS on the North Sea it was due to a bad soldering joint in an inline fuse.
As expected no inline fuse was found for the VHF and after several hours of search the VHF power cable was bypassed taking power from the AIS . When tested the 2A fuse for the AIS was blown while transmitting but now replaced by a 10A fuse all is working . I got in touch with Randal (former owner) on the subject and below is a quote from his experience with inline fuses
"Today if I could have put my hands on the electrician that wired in the VHF radio, I would have killed him with no regrets.
I figured there was a hidden fuse somewhere along the line. I started disassembling and finally found it buried inside a wiring harness behind the chart plotter. You can barely see it in the first picture where I pulled it out.
What kind of idiot buries a fuse inside a concealed wiring harness. From start to finish, it took me three hours to find the fuse."
(The white fuseholder seen on the picture is for the VHF.)
So far my experience with inline fuses have been only problems and no benefits. It´s a "locus minoris" for every electrical installation and if used it must be placed easily reached close to the instrument it protects.
