Fuses: Explained.

 

Introduction:

            Sometimes, the appliances in our homes are overheated. Then they may get damaged or even catch fire. In fact, not only these appliances but every appliance in our house is also affected by the unwanted high electric currents. There is a limit to the amount of electric current that any device can withstand. If the current exceeds that limit, the components of the device heat up and this may even lead to a fire.

Fuses:

            So is there any way to prevent that from happening?

There is a device which is used to prevent this and it is called ‘Electric fuse’. Well, it comes in many shapes and sizes. This is what it generally looks like.

 

 

It has a fuse wire and it is connected to the two terminals which are made of some metal. This wire is made up of zinc, copper, silver, or aluminum. The rest of the switch is basically made of a non-combustible material. And it makes perfect sense too.

We should make sure that the device which is used to prevent fires in other devices must not catch fire.

Now how does it prevent household electrical appliances from catching fire?

Well, this fuse is introduced in every circuit in our household.

When the current flows through the circuit, it heats up the fuse wire. And when there is heavy current in the circuit, the wire simply melts resulting in the broken circuit.

Yes, the circuit breaks and the current does not reach the appliance.

So this is how an electric fuse functions.

Simple isn’t it?

Now there is one obvious disadvantage of electric fuse that you must have noticed. Once the fuse wire melts, it cannot reform itself. We have to replace the fuse with the new one manually.

To overcome this problem, automatic fuses are used nowadays. They are also called ‘Miniature circuit breakers’ often abbreviated as MCB. I have already written about MCBs.

They work like automatic switches. Whenever there is an excess amount of current flow in the circuit, they automatically switch off. This breaks the circuit and the appliances are saved from excessive current. They also automatically get switched on when the flow is back to normal.

 

I hope that this article will cover the topic of fuses.

Stay tuned.

Bye.