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Plane Power Fuse
- Thread starter shiney
- Start date
Jamie
Well Known Member
Just looking at the wiring diagram for the Plane Power Alt it shows to wire to the switch via a 5amp fuse, is it OK to do this from the bus or does it need to be a CB? If OK from bus, which bus is recommended?
I have mine on a fuse (turning it off is what the switch is for). What busses do you have? If you have the traditional 'Lectric Bob e-buss/main buss setup you want it on the main buss. There would be no reason to have it on the e-buss because presumably the only time you would use the e-buss would be when the alternator has failed. You don't want it on the battery buss because it sucks power continuously.
Sparky
Well Known Member
I Would Use a Circuit Breaker
I am planning to use a 5 amp circuit breaker for the field input because the Plane Power alternator has built-in overvoltage protection, which will cause an over current situation (this is called crowbar overvoltage protection - which provides essentially a short to ground on the alternator field input) if the alternator output voltage exceeds a pre-set maximum, which will then trip the field circuit breaker and shut down the alternator. Plane Power advises that if this happens you can reset the breaker once and if it doesn't trip again you are good to go. If you use a fuse, the fuse will blow and you will not have the ability to try to do a single reset (unless you have a spare fuse and ready access to the fuse panel in flight).
I am planning to use a 5 amp circuit breaker for the field input because the Plane Power alternator has built-in overvoltage protection, which will cause an over current situation (this is called crowbar overvoltage protection - which provides essentially a short to ground on the alternator field input) if the alternator output voltage exceeds a pre-set maximum, which will then trip the field circuit breaker and shut down the alternator. Plane Power advises that if this happens you can reset the breaker once and if it doesn't trip again you are good to go. If you use a fuse, the fuse will blow and you will not have the ability to try to do a single reset (unless you have a spare fuse and ready access to the fuse panel in flight).
Frank Smidler
Well Known Member
Pull able 5 amp Circuit Breaker
I used a 5 am circuit breaker that can be pulled off manually. This is what Lectric Bob recommended and the amp called for by Plane Power. I then hooked it into my main bus through an automotive blade type 7 amp fuse. After a few hours I had the fuse blow but not the CB. I surmise that the CB was more tolerant of a slight surge than the blade fuse. I changed the blade fuse to 10 amp and have not had a problem for at least 150 hours. I'm not worried about the size of the 10 amp fuse since I still have the 5 amp CB that should go first.
I used a 5 am circuit breaker that can be pulled off manually. This is what Lectric Bob recommended and the amp called for by Plane Power. I then hooked it into my main bus through an automotive blade type 7 amp fuse. After a few hours I had the fuse blow but not the CB. I surmise that the CB was more tolerant of a slight surge than the blade fuse. I changed the blade fuse to 10 amp and have not had a problem for at least 150 hours. I'm not worried about the size of the 10 amp fuse since I still have the 5 amp CB that should go first.
