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Old 27-11-2022, 12:37   #76
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

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OK. Again, I am not hearing a lot of love for the puncturing. Why is that? I have never used it before. It just seems like it might be good in this case.

Why is it bad?
Just out of interest, I don't have enough experience to comment or recommend one way or another but I can comment on one experience with them.

We used insulation displacement connections on one 24Vdc job, there were over 500 door mounted locks on this job in 2007, that was the only time we have used them. We since changed the design because of the client didn't like them and we were concerned about future customer perceptions. About 12 of these doors cycle up to 200 times per day, the others average about 20 times. We have not had a single failure in 15 years.

I won't use them anymore but because of perception not because of experienced issues.
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Old 27-11-2022, 12:39   #77
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

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Good discussion. I'd still vote for a central breaker / distribution panel, with home runs back to there from each load, for simplicity, reliability and safety. Of course there are other options, but there are reasons it's usually done this way.

This is different from the debate about where to put the switches. To me, the starting point for that discussion is to put aside the idea of switching devices from the breaker panel. That's not what the breaker panel is for. Put each switch where it makes sense.
Tom, just because that’s how it has been done in the past doesn’t make it right. Think about it.

simplicity? How is it more simple than one cable?

Reliability? A giant rats nest of tons of different tiny wires running everywhere? How is that more reliable than one cable that can't fry because it's almost never at rated load?

And finally, safety? Ramping all those little wires up to their maximum and running them through places that you can’t get to? Do you think that it’s safe? Instead of one cable that’s never at its rated amp capacity?

Think this through carefully. You’re just going by what you know. You’re not going by critical thinking. kind of like those tech-support guys reading off a script in India. You had to have said that out of habit.

Think it through. This is significantly more safe, significantly more simple, and significantly more reliable. It is the end of wiring problems. There can’t be any wiring problems. There’s only one wire.

And then at the source where you use the power, there is a tiny little 3 foot long wire run. So much more simple. So much more easy to diagnose. And so much more safe.

you have to be speaking from just habit.

Otherwise tell me why it’s more safe to have a rats nest coming from a central location.
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Old 27-11-2022, 12:46   #78
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

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Just out of interest, I don't have enough experience to comment or recommend one way or another but I can comment on one experience with them.

We used insulation displacement connections on one 24Vdc job, there were over 500 door mounted locks on this job in 2007, that was the only time we have used them. We since changed the design because of the client didn't like them and we were concerned about future customer perceptions. About 12 of these doors cycle up to 200 times per day, the others average about 20 times. We have not had a single failure in 15 years.

I won't use them anymore but because of perception not because of experienced issues.

Makes sense to me.

I think I’m not going to be returning the little taps that I bought.

they aren’t the cutting kind. I will have to scrape the insulator back a little bit myself. And then torque them down over the wire. Then I will likely dunk them in resin so that they are impervious to air and water.

which may also be completely overkill considering every charge controller in the world and every battery charger and everything else uses the exact same connections and they are not at all vapor tight. You just shove the end of the wire in there and turn the screw.
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Old 27-11-2022, 13:06   #79
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

We have a main power distribution box with circuit breakers that feed 2 fuse boxes, one in each hull. They are supplied by a 60A+ cable that is on a 50A breaker at the source, each item has its own wire from the fuse box with it's own fuse. Most items have a switch conveniently located to where the item is used or will be switched from. High current items have their own supply from the distribution box.

I'm happy with it.
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Old 27-11-2022, 15:04   #80
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

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We have a main power distribution box with circuit breakers that feed 2 fuse boxes, one in each hull. They are supplied by a 60A+ cable that is on a 50A breaker at the source, each item has its own wire from the fuse box with it's own fuse. Most items have a switch conveniently located to where the item is used or will be switched from. High current items have their own supply from the distribution box.

I'm happy with it.
exactly what I am doing. That’s cool that you have a system like this already. You built that boat?
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Old 27-11-2022, 15:55   #81
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

I am actually doing something similar. Example: on my DC Distribution panel I will have a (24V) 50A breaker for Owners Cabin. It gets 6AWG pos + neg wires running to a BlueSea fuse box like shown upthread, with negative busbar built in. From there, a 30A fuse for a small inverter, fuses for bedside DC Outlets etc.

For lights I have a central controller though.

This allows me to have a really simple DC Distribution panel.
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Old 27-11-2022, 16:06   #82
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

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exactly what I am doing. That’s cool that you have a system like this already. You built that boat?
No, I bought mine but I am changing the wiring, I'm pretty much done now. Originally everything except the windless fed from the distribution board and some of the smaller items had inline fuses somewhere which drove me nuts so I'm deleting all the fuses located at the item or in weird places around the boat and putting them together in one of 3 places. All fuses now are upstream from the smaller capacity wire.
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Old 27-11-2022, 16:38   #83
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

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I am actually doing something similar. Example: on my DC Distribution panel I will have a (24V) 50A breaker for Owners Cabin. It gets 6AWG pos + neg wires running to a BlueSea fuse box like shown upthread, with negative busbar built in. From there, a 30A fuse for a small inverter, fuses for bedside DC Outlets etc.

For lights I have a central controller though.

This allows me to have a really simple DC Distribution panel.
very nice! Wow. Those custom panels are awesome.

But yes. That’s the idea. I think I will take a peek at the hardware you are talking about. Blue Sea makes some pretty good stuff. my battery fuses and big bass bars by the battery system are all blue sea.

Excited to wire in those USB chargers and all sorts of places. I’m even going to have one on the coffee table. Yes, I have a coffee table going in. Salon design affords a triangular one.
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Old 27-11-2022, 17:15   #84
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

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Think about it.
Oh, I did. I didn't write a book about why I hold my opinions, because that's not what you asked for and nobody else cares. But I do have very good reasons for them.

I offered what I thought was a helpful perspective. Feel free to consider it or not. You do you. I'm not going to argue.
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Old 27-11-2022, 19:11   #85
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

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very nice! Wow. Those custom panels are awesome.

But yes. That’s the idea. I think I will take a peek at the hardware you are talking about. Blue Sea makes some pretty good stuff. my battery fuses and big bass bars by the battery system are all blue sea.

Excited to wire in those USB chargers and all sorts of places. I’m even going to have one on the coffee table. Yes, I have a coffee table going in. Salon design affords a triangular one.
These are the ones I got. They even hold some spare fuses in the lid.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000THQ0CQ
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Old 27-11-2022, 21:03   #86
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

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very nice! Wow. Those custom panels are awesome.

But yes. That’s the idea. I think I will take a peek at the hardware you are talking about. Blue Sea makes some pretty good stuff. my battery fuses and big bass bars by the battery system are all blue sea.

Excited to wire in those USB chargers and all sorts of places. I’m even going to have one on the coffee table. Yes, I have a coffee table going in. Salon design affords a triangular one.
I agree - USB C's everywhere possible for me.

Except that...they require different cabling (probably) than USB A. I understand base USB C is 60W, it can get to 100W with PD, and the new v2.1 goes to 240W. Amperage is 3A usually. Voltage can be 5v/9v/12v/15v/20v. So if you could have 240W delivery at 12V (which is questionable from my reading), that's 20a in wiring you've got to cater for - for ONE USB C outlet!

USB A seems simple, but USB C seems a minefield in terms of what size cable to run (and fuse for), especially if you want to try and future-proof a little...
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Old 27-11-2022, 22:54   #87
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

I long ago, on a previous boat, decided that trying to get ever more undersized conduits was a mugs game and that if I built another boat I would install a house bus and a nav bus and a multi strand data bus and fuse and relay at the individual take offs.

A later thought when I was considering haw to tap off the busses was to not use cable but instead aluminium or brass bar that I could drill and tap to fasten terminals to the bus bars.

Where I wanted remote as well as local switching I would use the data cable conductors.

I know aluminium as bus bars is controversial but I wired solar panels with it about four years ago and have not had any problems with it. I used liberal amounts of lubricant/sealer/corrosion preventers on the crimp connectors where I screwed them to the bus bars and it appears to work well.
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Old 27-11-2022, 23:41   #88
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What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

UsbC outlets is the wAy to go all right.
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Old 28-11-2022, 04:47   #89
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

I did the research on USB outlets recently and unfortunately found that most products offered do not work correctly.

Example: unable to handshake with phone so not charging correctly. Unable to to high power charger even though it claims it can. Starts doing fast charge, then overheats etc. etc. The list is endless and I was lucky I could return most of it.

In the end there was this combination that did everything correctly:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001U4ZZPK

with

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RHSD9WM

I tried 3 alternatives for the Blue Sea Systems outlet, but they were all failures even when they looked exactly the same (in your hands they are very different though, typical knock-offs).

The charger is solid aluminum and showed no heat problems at all.

Now here’s the catch: you must connect this to 24V DC to get fast charging because those modes use higher voltages. If you use 12V you only get regular charge rates.

From the items I tested and declared failures, some worked on 12V but not correctly on 24V even though they claim this. It seems they don’t even test their products.

With the combi above, I can stick my 15” Macbook Pro straight into it and it will charge at 30W which is the maximum. The 48W they list is for both ports simultaneously.
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Old 28-11-2022, 07:18   #90
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Re: What about fuses with the switches at point of use?

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exactly what I am doing. That’s cool that you have a system like this already. You built that boat?
On a recent rewire of a Irwin 44
I put in a main dc panel by Paneltronics,
Umbilicals to 4 Blue Sea fuse blocks.
One of those fuse blocks and it’s associated breaker was speced at 20 amps
The six circuits associated with this block feed 12gauge duplex wire
to the vee berth , forward head, salon left and right , aft cabin and head
we’re they terminated in another Blue Sea fuse block.
Devices local to those locations are powered by the local fuse block.
Conceptually I understand what you are trying to accomplish
however consider this scenario, you smell/ see smoke somewhere on the boat you would either have to turn off the entire DC system or run around
flipping individual switches.
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