Mailing List lml@lancaironline.net Message #44768
From: Robert Pastusek <rpastusek@htii.com>
Sender: <marv@lancaironline.net>
Subject: RE: [LML] Re: Design for Circuit Breakers & Fuses?
Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2007 09:46:33 -0500
To: <lml@lancaironline.net>

Colyn Case said:

 

The pro-fuse argument makes sense to me except for one thing:   A breaker gives you a positive indication that it interrupted the circuit.  A fuse, particularly a hidden fuse, gives you no indication. 

 

I thought that would be bad because I'm left to diagnose a problem with incomplete information.   e.g. my trim isn't working - is it something I can do something about or is the trim servo toasted?

 

You fuse guys must have thought about this.  What's the counter-argument?

 

Colyn,

You have a good point if you intend/need to troubleshoot while still in the air. As I noted in my original post, many years of doing this in military fighters (as a weapon systems operator—with a well qualified pilot still flying the jet and typically swearing because his xyz was not working) convinced me that this was (in my experience) a totally pointless exercise. I’m pretty sure I never recovered a system by resetting a CB, and I once caused a fire in the cockpit, and killed a generator another time. Still, I’ve heard that others have successfully recovered systems by resetting CB’s. So in the end, you make your own tradeoffs/decisions. Everything is a compromise at some level…

 

Bob

 

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