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I've no idea why folks hook batteries up without fuses or circuit breakers.
We had breakers on our old boat, Saga, which did a great job of cutting
things off when there was a short. (Like submerging the batteries in sea
water.) While breakers are somewhat expensive, fuses are not. They are easy
to find and don't cause any drop in voltage etc... They should be attached
directly the to the battery, because you want to stop the case when the
battery bank provides current to a short (most common case) rather than when
there's a short on the way to the batteries. You can also put a fuse a the
output of the charger, for the same reason. Do both, the fuses are quite
inexpensive.
The real reason for fuses is that a large battery stack has a gigantic
amount of energy stored in it. With Saga's stack we could actually weld!
You really need to limit the damage such a source of energy can do, and a
fuse is a great inexpensive way to do it.
Beau
Boatless in San Francisco
...snip...
>
>I would like to add that these units survived both my
>lightening strike and
>partial sinking...even with the Heart charging the batteries underwater
>continually for how long??? (not good!) until the cables
>burned through.
>Maybe the electrical experts on this list might volunteer some sacred
>knowledge on how this scenerio (and potential fire hazard?)
>could be avoided
>with whatever charger/inverter is choosen?
>
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