soundop said:ok so in the middle of the show the fuses for your ligh board and sound board blow, and the audience starts to panic what would you do?
MircleWorker said:Fuses in the Building? I hope you mean breaker. Initially I would throw our lights up through an architectural control unit. If it is the main power coming into the building, then we have a generator that takes over, for emergency lights only.
I've had a show were everything went out, it was one of the craziest things ever to happened to me. The ushers and I had to use flashlights to get about 500 people out of the auditorium.
koncept said:i just read this, i though fuses/breakers only blow when too much current is drawn? can they be blown if too much is available/applied such as in a surge?
second, if the equipment can operate correctly on a lower amp fuse wouldn't it be smarter to keep the lower fuse in there so that it blows sooner in that kind of event?
koncept said:i just read this, i though fuses/breakers only blow when too much current is drawn? can they be blown if too much is available/applied such as in a surge?
second, if the equipment can operate correctly on a lower amp fuse wouldn't it be smarter to keep the lower fuse in there so that it blows sooner in that kind of event?
Mayhem said:Chris is right – the fuse doesn’t care what current it has available to it, it only cares what passes across it. Think of the Chauvet Insignia light that was mentioned in another post. This particular light (I still had the pdf open!) has a 6.3A fast blow mains fuse in it.
You can plug that light into a 20A outlet and the fuse doesn’t blow. The fuse will blow however if a fault occurs in the light that causes a power draw of greater than 6.3A.
Say for example that the unit got wet and shorted the power supply – the current draw would rise dramatically, and the fuse would blow, protecting the unit from damage.
Now surge protectors are an interesting topic and one that I am not going to go into in any depth – I’ll leave that for someone else to research. What I will say however, is that your fuse will generally not protect you. The hint that I will give you is that when we discuss electricity, we commonly discuss two variables.
Consider these questions:
1. What does a fuse/breaker protect against?
2. What is a “surge” or “spike” in electricity?
3. How does a surge protector work?
Again – using a lower rated fuse could result in the fuse blowing whilst the equipment is working under normal conditions. However, using a lower rated fuse in a pinch may get you through a show (although there is no guarantee). However, do not put a larger rated fuse in as you really do risk further damage to your equipment and will certainly void your warranty.
Whilst on the topic of fuses, I will also add in these questions:
1. What are ceramic fuses and why are they used?
2. If a ceramic fuse blows and you have no more ceramic fuses, but do have a standard fuse of the same rating, should you use the standard fuse?
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