View Single Post
  #16   Report Post  
Posted to uk.d-i-y
Rod Speed Rod Speed is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 40,893
Default Fuses (not a serious question)



wrote in message
...
On Thursday, 19 December 2019 10:21:08 UTC, Scott wrote:
On Thu, 19 Dec 2019 09:35:42 +0000, John Rumm
wrote:

On 18/12/2019 19:57, Scott wrote:

I left a plug fuse in my jacket pocket, which I then washed at 40
degrees (mix programme). Could I still use it (after drying out
obviously) or will its electrical properties be compromised?

For the price of a fuse I would not risk it, since its impossible to say
how it would perform under fault conditions. Any moisture inside would
convert to steam on a high current fault, and make the enclosure more
likely to rupture.


Thanks. Seriously, that was my plan but I just wondered out of
curiosity.


It would need to be dried out, eg in an oven at a bit above 100C.
Trouble is you'd be hard pressed to tell when it was dry.


The normal way to do that is to keep weighing it until the weight
doesnt drop anymore. And you dont need accurate scales for that
either, just a simple beam balance with another of those fuses.

If water remained it would explode under heavy fault current.
Mains plug fuses are metal wire connected to metal end caps
with a ceramic tube filled with sand, so the materials themselves
would not be affected significantly by short water exposure.