by Arne » Sun Nov 06, 2005 8:33 am
You are right. Fuse wire can generally be of the same thickness as the power wire and will blow first.... I err on the side of safety, and to keep line loss at a minimum...... I have a 30 amp fuse at the battery with a 12 inch run to a fuse block, and my reading lights run off one 15 amp fuse, the fan, fanstastic fan and dome light off another 15 amp.... So, I could lose reading lights, or the rest, but none are weekend killers..... and the wiring is pretty simple, and most is buried in the walls.... if it works now, I expect it will be working in 10 years. The main connections are all easily accessed if I wanted to bother, behind lights or bezels.
The one thing I have to do, still, is get a 15 amp, 115v breaker, to put in the shore power line.... that wire feeds 3 power strips, one for general activities, one for a/c, tv, heater, and one for microwave and galley. All those are surge protectors with built-in circuit breakers, but I have no protection between shore power coming in at the wall, and the power strips.. will fix that this week.....
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I will off this general tip: where I run wire under the tear, through holes in the frame, I put a glob of silicone at each contact point to keep the wire from chafing.... All of it is sheathed, but this is an extra protection type thing......