How to Ensure Your Marine Electrical System Has the Proper Fuses
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDqc5yCCqa0[/embed] When upgrading your marine electrical system with lithium batteries you will be putting much more stress on your accompanying components. These new batteries will demand more current to charge faster and pull power out of them quicker than your previous lead acid batteries. While this will bring many benefits to the operation and use of the electronics on your boat, you will want to thoroughly inspect your electrical system to ensure it can handle this new stress. Inspecting each piece of your system and checking if you have fuses in the right places will help protect your components from potential damage.
Starting at your battery bank, you will need a Class T Fuse right out of the main power conductor on the positive side. According to current ABYC standards, this should be within 7 inches of your battery bank. Then, your wire should run from through the battery disconnect switch to a distribution block. The Lynx Distributor allows you to distribute power across multiple big and small circuits. Depending on the component that is receiving power and the size of the wire going to it, you can put different-sized fuses within the distributor that are specific to each branch of the circuit.
As you move through your electrical system, you will want to ensure that each fuse is appropriately sized. The same fuse that protects a large, 2 AWG cable won’t protect a smaller 8 AWG cable. A proper power system will have a fuse or breaker EVERY time a larger wire connects to a smaller wire.
