Battery tender cable fuse

[grendell]

I searched and didn't find exactly what I was looking for. I have the battery tender cable with the inline fuse connected directly to the battery. I have a powerlet lighter adapter connected to the BT pigtail for my MP3 player and to power my Chatterbox. This has worked pretty well so far, but I found today that the 3 amp fuse in the BT cable was blown. I was also planning on using the the Walmart air pump with this setup and I saw some posts that indicate that the 3 amp fuse would be too small..

My question is how big of a fuse can I use with this setup and still be safe? I'm not exactly sure what gauge the BT and powerlet wires are.

Thanks.

 

[grendell]

I searched and didn't find exactly what I was looking for. I have the battery tender cable with the inline fuse connected directly to the battery. I have a powerlet lighter adapter connected to the BT pigtail for my MP3 player and to power my Chatterbox. This has worked pretty well so far, but I found today that the 3 amp fuse in the BT cable was blown. I was also planning on using the the Walmart air pump with this setup and I saw some posts that indicate that the 3 amp fuse would be too small..
My question is how big of a fuse can I use with this setup and still be safe? I'm not exactly sure what gauge the BT and powerlet wires are.

Thanks.

It looks like both the BT and the powerlet cables are 16AWG and the compressor has an internal 10 amp fuse. So, is 10 amp too big of a fuse to put in the BT cable?

 

[Constant Mesh]

It's likely that the charger conductors are 18 awg copper. Those short conductors can be fused up to 18 amps.

They used a 3 amp fuse since the charger is likely current limited to 1.5 amps or so out to the battery. You should be able to use a 10 amp fuse with no problem.

The air compressor current is likely 7 or 8 amps or so. So a 10 amp fuse should work OK.