First wanted to say I read the info on www.bcae1.com - it was very helpful. So here is what I have planned - a 0/1 ga power wire from the battery to a dist block (not sure about a fused or unfused version) with two 4 ga power wires for my amps. The first amp is a PG ZX400ti, which PG recommends a 50A fuse for 4 ohm stereo use. I will be using this amp to power my JL XR comps set, so that is pretty straight forward. My other amp is a PG Tantrum 1200.1, which PG recommends to use an 80A fuse. I will be using this amp at 4 ohms into one sub. My first question is to determine what size fuse to use on the main 0/1 ga power wire - is it as simple as adding up the fuse ratings for my two amps? Or should I go with a 150A fuse to be safe? My other question is regarding the fuses on the 4 ga power wires going to the amps. If I use a fused dist block, then that would be sufficient? If not, then I would need to add an inline fuse for each wire at the proper rating. So I will need 3 fuses total right? One for the main power wire and one each for the smaller power wires. Thanks for any help!
it is as simple as adding up the individual amplifier fuses the main fuse by the battery is there to protect the wire in case of a short to ground somewhere on the power wire, without a fuse this can turn into a car fire you need the fuse the power wire with a fuse large enough to handle the current demands of both amps, thats the reason you add up the amp values 150A will be perfect, seeing as you need an ANL and they only come in 100a and 150A as far as the distribution block goes, a fused one will do the trick. This you can probably find a 1/0 in; 2x4awg out that utilizes AGU (glass fuses)
Someone else on CAF said that I would only need to have the one main power wire fuse for my setup. He claimed that since the fuse would be 150A and I would run 4 ga wire after the dist block, then I shouldn't need to fuse the two 4 ga power wires (as they would be able to handle current above 150A). What do you think about this assessment?
https://www.delcity.net/tstore/servlet/page...d=193072&page=1 Fun ALternative to Fusing. Especially if you: A. Burn fuses often by doing stupid things B. live in an area where youpretty much have to buy fuses online C. you lose your spare fuses. I meet all three requirements the fuses in my area are too $$$ for my cheapness. Also, I thought you DON'T have to fuse at every downgrade in wire size. It doesn't hurt, but I thought it isn't necessary. I'mnot really sure though...
Well, here is the deal. I read the "fuses" section on bcae1.com and Perry, the fellow who developed the site, wrote on the site to fuse whenever you reduce the wire size. SO after I got the reply at CAF about not having to do this, I emailed Perry to clarify and he said the CAF response was right, i.e. I don't necesarily need to add a fuse to my two 4 ga wires given my setup. Now if I added a 250A fuse to the main power wire, then I would need to fuse the two 4 ga wires. I will be blunt here - my main concern is more the amps, not the wire. Maybe it is overkill, but if I fused the two 4 ga wires, then I would simply have an extra fail-safe. But is it necessary is my question.
How do you connect wire to those circuit breakers? That is a pretty cool idea actually. What would be the biggest wire you can connect to these breakers?
For the main wire, if you add up the fuses on your amps, that's the absolute minimum that the fuse up front can be. It can be larger, but as you increase it you obviously lose some different type of protection too... As for fuses in the back... you don't need any, if the amps have them built in. If they don't, then a fused distribution block can be a little more presentable than an ugly in-line fuse, sure. But it's not going to add any additional protection by having a fused distro block, and a fuse in the amp itself. Let's look quick at what these fuses do, at each location: underhood fuse: This fuse is here to protect your car, your power wiring, your battery from damage in the event of a short circuit. I don't know how you routed your power wire... through a hole in the firewall, under the carpet, around some screws, by your seat slider, under your doorsill, whatever... we don't know. Let's say you inadvertantly put a screw through it, maybe screwing your doorsill back in. Or maybe your seat slider wore through the plastic jacketing on the wire. What we've got now is a bare-wire-on-chassis-metal short circuit! If there were no fuse underhood, hundreds of amperes of current would flow, maybe thousands... potentially bursting your battery, heating that wire up like a heating element, maybe even causing a fire. This is what this underhood fuse protects against... so there's no real amperage to shoot for... hundreds of amperes would flow in the case of the damage it's working to prevent. Anywhere there is a fault or short in the power wiring between the amps and this fuse, the fuse will blow to protect your car, battery, and wiring. Adding your amp's fuses up is a simple minimum value for this fuse, because if you dipped under that, you'd run the risk of blowing it under normal use. Makes sense. B) The fuse in your amps: This fuse is here to protect the amplifiers themselves. If something happened that caused the amplifiers to draw more current than their circuitry was designed to carry, the fuse in the amplifier itself will pop, protecting the amp from internal damage. This could be as simple as hooking up an impedance load that's too low for the amp to handle. This built-in fuse will pop though... Adding additional fusing that is redundant doesn't really offer any additional protection. It doesn't have any particular role to play, and it potentially could simply offer troubleshooting headaches, as you try to determine why an amp won't power up, for example. Hopefully that helps clear things up! :detective:
also, never ever go unfused on the main power wire, regardless of what ANYBODY else tells you shiit happens 2 of my cable ties broke last year on along road trip, my power cable slipped down touching the axle, causing it to wear through, short, and blow my 300A fuse imagine the predicament i would have been in if i was unfused and 300 miles away from home
Thanks for the clarification guys - seeing that neither of my amps has external fuses, I will go ahead and get a fused dist block. I know they cost a little more, but I would prefer the cleaner look and the ease of replacing fuses. I definitely won't go without a fuse near the battery on the power wire - that would be a car audio sin!
