sakic19

I melted my distribution block. Anyone know what the problem may have been?? As for wire gauge I have more than sufficient in and out.

A sound shop around here told me it was probably because I didn't upgrade my ground/chassis wire from the battery, its still stock. It made sense to me, but I just wanted to get a second opinion on it.

2 months ago my in line fuse holder right behind the battery melted too. It continued to work perfectly so I don't know exactly when it went. But my car had overheated one day and blew the rad, so I was in there replacing it when I noticed the fuse holder was melted, could it melt just from the heat under the hood (like I say it was hot enough to burst my rad)??

Last question, are Tsunami distribution blocks any good? I was looking at a "TLWFDB4-AGU" or "FDBM-3MANL"?? And what amperage fuses should I be using in the dist. block? My amps are Clarion:

APX1300 (300 watts RMS each) X2
APX4240 (240 watts RMS)


Thanks for your help

maltesechicken

To be short, Yes - the shop gave you a good explanation . . . for a longer discussion on this very topic, check out this link here (and try to ignore the silly banter in it)

sakic19

Thanks,

I had been told about the big 3 upgrade before, but I was cheap and tried to get around it. I guess I'm lucky it wasn't worse...

maltesechicken

Big 3 might not be necessary - but at the minimum you need to upgrade the wire from the chassis to the battery ground. This will at least open up the electrical flow reducing the heat that caused your fuse to melt.

The other 2 wires will make sure that the alt gives all of its juice to the battery

KenC

I saw something almost exactly like this lately. It turned out that the previous installer had under-fused the system by quite a bit. If the fuse doesn't see a 'spike' it can literally cook itself - as this one did - completely black, melting the entire fuse holder and making quite a stench. It ended up he was in the range where he was better suited with a cirquit breaker.

Not necceccarily the issue, but I just thought I'd chip in.

maltesechicken

Yup, typical bus fuses won't blow if the current draw is very close to the fuse rating. Instead, since the fuse is the thinnest conductor in the line, it creates a bottle neck for the current to go through - not a problem if the current is 80% of the fuse's capacity or less. But when it gets close to a 100% match, it gets hot. Heat increases resistance. Higher resistance creates more heat. The vicious cycle continues until there is so much heat that the whole thing melts from the heat.

JohnVroom

did the plastic melt or did the plastic deform or was it the metal? Many plastics start to fail somewhere around 180F the metal melting temp for a block made of aluminum is around 800F. Temperatures under the hood get toasty but shouldn't affect PVC insulation on an aftermarket wire. Things under hood get so hot you can not bear touching them and the point for that kind of pain is at least 140F

sakic19

Thats interesting, that does sound like exactly what happened with my fuse holder, same result anyways. I wouldn't be suprised if the fuse was the wrong size because on my distribution I had a 60, 80 and 100 amp fuses, and 2 of my three amps are the exact same model??? This was done by a "professional" installer - but since at the time everything worked I couldn't be bothered to mention it. But it wouldn't suprise me if they goofed on the fuse holder fuse as well.

I don't know what else could have caused the fuse holder to melt, I'm assuming my insufficient ground couldn't affect it could it?? And other then that the only thing I can think of is when my engine overheated - unfortunately I don't know what temperature it would have gotten too... but the wire insulation is fine, it was just the holder (and it deformed by the way, and I think the metal stayed more or less the way it was supposed too)...

KenC

An insufficient ground would have you running problems with your amps, and more than likely not a problem at the fuse holder. In the case I was speaking of above, the previous installer had actually fused a 160 amp system with a 20 amp ANL fuse. This big oopsie led to the fuse welding itself shut, and what I think was sparking from one end of the fuse to the fuseholder connector. When I pulled the fuse out of the melted wreckage (And part of the wire insulation had gone as well) one end of the fuse was still shiny bronze, and the other end (and most of the glass) was black. The fuse itself was intact.

On the installer note, everyone makes mistakes. Check the fuses on your actual gear and go by that. I find it a lot more suiting than guesstimating by the RMS or peak powers presented.

Rrrrolla

iTrader: (3)

The fact that your dist block melted and not your small ground wire leads me to believe the problem was in your dist block. Perhaps the installer did not screw something in tightly enough? Heat happens when you try to get too much current through too small of a wire, so if the ground wire was the problem, why did it not melt? The distribution block melted because there was a point within the block where there was a bottleneck, could have been because of a fuse within the block, was it a fused distribution block? Fuses will cause terrible heat just before they blow because of this very reason.