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Old October 15th 13, 04:39 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
7C
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Default Fuses on the panel, or not


2) Thermal trips need a large overcurrent for a long time before they go.
Low value trips introduce a large voltage drop.


I would add to this that thermal trips will reset after a period of time. If the original short persists they will cycle on and off quite quickly (in my experience a few times a second) and will NOT protect equipment from overheating. I had them on my batteries and got lucky to that the output to the 5V converter shorted on the ground - the 12 to 5v converter overheated, caused a permanent short and ended up well above too hot to touch. I now have a normal fuse and redundancy provided by a second battery.

I would be concerned that any self-resetting circuit would behave the same, perhaps with a longer cycle. If you can't physically isolate then you are stuffed when you are flying... Bet you can't land quickly enough