Howard Jones
Supporter
So I am finishing up a draft electrical drawing , buying gauges and other electrical pieces, and generally getting ready to wire my SLC. I would say that the drawing and component selection is 90% complete but I do have one question for the group.
All my other loads circuits, pumps, fans, lights etc. are going to be protected with circuit breakers instead of fuses, but I haven't really settled on the alternator charging circuit. Most cars nowadays use a fusible link. This is really a short piece of smaller gauge wire in series with the larger wire that is the path from the alternator to the battery. Their main advantage is they can survive short duration high current conditions that would otherwise cause a fuse to blow but will melt open if the high current lasts too long and would otherwise burn up the wire harness.
I am considering using a circuit breaker in the alternator circuit also but am wondering what others have used or if other kit car type systems use anything at all. My GTD doesn't protect the alternator circuit at all, for example. I've seen wire harness kits that don't address this issue at all either. I've never seen anything on a race car at all in the alternator circuit for protection.
What do you guys think about these? A little expensive but they look very robust and can be manually reset.
Resettable Circuit Breaker Cooper Bussmann
Or am I just getting too deep into this and worrying for worry sake? What do you guys think?
All my other loads circuits, pumps, fans, lights etc. are going to be protected with circuit breakers instead of fuses, but I haven't really settled on the alternator charging circuit. Most cars nowadays use a fusible link. This is really a short piece of smaller gauge wire in series with the larger wire that is the path from the alternator to the battery. Their main advantage is they can survive short duration high current conditions that would otherwise cause a fuse to blow but will melt open if the high current lasts too long and would otherwise burn up the wire harness.
I am considering using a circuit breaker in the alternator circuit also but am wondering what others have used or if other kit car type systems use anything at all. My GTD doesn't protect the alternator circuit at all, for example. I've seen wire harness kits that don't address this issue at all either. I've never seen anything on a race car at all in the alternator circuit for protection.
What do you guys think about these? A little expensive but they look very robust and can be manually reset.
Resettable Circuit Breaker Cooper Bussmann
Or am I just getting too deep into this and worrying for worry sake? What do you guys think?
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