I am all for DIY and the mad scientist approach to building :) However, I tend to be hesitant about modifying safety devices such as fuses and circuit breakers from their manufactured configuration.
The current generation of lead acid batteries are cable of delivering greater than 2000 amps at 12 volts for several hundred milliseconds in a direct short. My first introduction to this was when a friend and I were working on his truck. He accidently dropped a wrench. After the smoke cleared, the wrench was solidly welded between the battery and an engine mount.
As a result, I prefer not to modify safety devices. This is especially true in a situation where inspectors only have a few minutes per vehicle to give it a pass or fail rating. There are a lot of ways pinch pennies, fuses and circuit breakers are probably one of them.
I wouldn't be messing with the actual safety function of the breaker switch itself. This would still trip if it goes over current, but it wouldn't based on what I would be putting through it (at most 30 amps.) I was just wondering if there was a way to have terminals put onto them or not. The one end is fairly obvious, it's the bladed end that normally goes onto a house circuit board. I was thinking of just having a normal 'switch' but I figured this would be a safer alternative.
I have learned, sometime the hard way, never to mess with fuses, fire extinguishers, or parachutes. I have not need them very often. But when I did, I need them to work :)
David
-- Edited by dfarning on Monday 21st of September 2015 04:37:26 PM
We use a single pole 70 amp 120/240 volt circuit breaker. With these the one end that goes into a blade on the panel goes into a blade (~3/32" small plate of aluminum) that is attached to a thick machinable plastic block that also attaches to a sheet metal piece. This sheet metal is attached to the circuit breaker by removing one or two of the 4 rivets in the circuit breaker and replacing them with #4 bolts. This is then attached to the frame. So this way the whole device is insulated from the frame and car itself. On the end that the wire normally goes into I use a 4 gauge copper wiring luge attached/soldered to the #4 battery cable. We cut the end off of the lug with the hole in it. The rest of the lug will now slide into the connection for the wire and the stud that clamps into the wire will go into the 'dent' put into the lug by the swedge we use to crimp it to the wire. Very simple and bullet proof. And out side of taking out the rivet and replacing them with bolts there is NO modifications to the circuit breaker itself.
My team had one of those, it was 8 guage wire for a sterio wiring kit and it had a 50 amp fuse. We blew it in our first test drive. I belive for 8 guage wire you can use an 80 amp fuse but my team was unable to find one that large that would fit in the holder.
