Quote:
Originally Posted by Jusplainwacky
Thanks for taking a stab at my question, but what you explained is a manual breaker...that is not what I'm referring to.
There is a difference between a fuse that you can manually reset such as a "breaker", then there are fuses that have a low temp metal which melts when the current exceeds its rating...and then there are thermal fuses, that once the current exceeds the rated current, the bi-metal heats up and mechanically breaks the circuit...once the circuit is broken, there is no more current, and once there is no more current, the bi-metal cools and reconnects, and the cycle continues.
Many of the fuses used in power seats is a bi-metal fuse...that resets itself. The question is...why do they use this type of fuse? As I mentioned, I would not want a fuse to reset itself if an over current condition were encountered.
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I think there is some confusion here on the common types of fuses & breakers:
* Fuse: Blows on over current and must be replaced
* Thermal fuse: Blows on excessive temperature - often used in small fan motors where they are not meant to be replaced - you throw that away
* Resettable fuse: Also PTC (for positive temperature coefficient) is essentially a solid-state device that never fully disconnects the load when it "trips", thus power must be removed to reset it.
* Circuit breaker: Must be manually reset
* Self-reset or Auto-reset breaker: Typically bi-metal and will continue to cycle until the overload condition goes away
You can always place a piezo buzzer across an auto-reset breaker and then you have a beeping notification for the overload...