On Tuesday, October 15, 2013 8:39:59 AM UTC-7, 7C wrote:
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

Uh? Why are you talking about "thermal trips" and automatic resetting? These thingies are called circuit breakers. Yes they they internally thermally trip, but so what. An aviation circuit breaker like the popular Klixon "TC" product lines will not automatically reset. You've got to push 'em back in.. For good reason.

Darryl