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[email protected] jurb6006@gmail.com is offline
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Default Can a loose connection lead to a blown mains fuse?

It's like this. Every time you turn on the switch you are in effect "tightening" a connection. When it's a dirty lug or a ****ty solder joint, the inrush of current happens many more times per hour or whatever. Understand if your mains run at 50 or 60 Hz it matters not, with a ****ty connection it could be effecively running alot lower. The equipment can even work if there's enough filtering and regulation, but yes, because of having to recharge the main filter too many times a ten amp fuse could blow in a device that only pulls two amps.

In the past there were devices that cheated on power consumption by doing that. No, they weren't on the shelves at Cosco or whatever. I designed a couple. With the mechanical electric meters, inertia is your friend :-) I also found that back wayback if you need a lot of current you could half wave recify it and fool the electric meter. My cousin researched that alot more because he had an electric furnace.

Anyway, the bottom line is the answer is yes. Think about it with basic math. You apply either 110 or 220 AC to it, the main filter cap has an ESR of less than an ohm, you might have a 2.2 ohm inrush limiter, figure out the current assuming a 0.6 volt drop across the recifiers, actually 1.2 volts. It's a hell of alot more than xis amps which might be the fuse rating. You know a 120V US market Sony TV or 32" pulls like 70 amps upon being turned on ? Now THAT is not just the rectifiers, it's the degaussers, but the same thing applies. Your basic seven amp fuse will pass 100, but only for milliseconds.

In fact this inrush current has spawned two design approacxhes in power supplies. One is using an extraa relay to jump the current limiting resistor so it no longer wastes power. The other is to use a zero crossing trigger to make the relay contace right where the voltag5e is at or near zero so the peak current is not so high.

Enough. Scuse my typos because my eyesight sucks and I REALLY cannot sit here and proof this.