Fuse sizing help

[TheAxeman]

Can anybody give me a little help here. I put a Blue Sea fuse block under the seat. I have the following items hooked up to it and need to put in the correct fuses:

Starcom

Hella FF-50 lights

Marineco cigi socket for Passport detector and/or compressor

2 Rear Powerlets

 

[Rogue]

Can anybody give me a little help here. I put a Blue Sea fuse block under the seat. I have the following items hooked up to it and need to put in the correct fuses:
Starcom

Hella FF-50 lights

Marineco cigi socket for Passport detector and/or compressor

2 Rear Powerlets

Educated guesses:

Starcom -3A? Check the manual and see what they reccomend.

Hella FF-50 lights -What wattage? At 55w each that would be 110W/12V=9.16A; I would go with at least 12A, 15A Would be best.

Marineco cigi socket for Passport detector and/or compressor -Passport, about the same as the Starcom, I would think the compressor will take at least 15A and possibly well over 20A. It should say how many watts or amps.

2 Rear Powerlets -What are you going to use them for?

 

[TheAxeman]

I plan on useing the rear powerlets for heated clothing, probably a couple of Gerbings liners which I believe draw about 77 watts. Right now I have a 5 amp in the Starcom slot and 15 amp in both the lights and the Marineco socket. The compressor is a torn apart Walmart job that I have under the seat.

 

[Rogue]

Those sound fine, are the rear powerlets fused seperate or together? I'd go with 8A or 10A each. If they are on the same fuse 15A or 20A would be fine.

The main reason for the fuses is just to protect the wire in case of a short. There have been a few charts linked for wire sizing, you may want to try a search but off the top of my head for cars/bikes (its different for houses/buildings) #14 is good for 20A, #12 for 30A and the smallest I use is #16 for 12A or less.

 

[TheAxeman]

Rogue,

Thanks for the help. I had Powerlet make me up a couple of sockets with 14" leads on them that are both wired to the Blue Sea independently. All the wiring I ran on the bike is 12 gauge with 10 gauge feeding the fuse block. I guess it is always better to undersize the fuse if anything as opposed to oversizing it but I just wanted to get a second opinion before I just stuck anything in there. Thanks again.

 

[Jabba]

I just did the same mods to my bike- but for now the Blue Sea is in the tankbag...until I get back from a trip to Yurp next month- then it goes under the seat. Sounds like you're on the right track- The Pump is gonna be your big draw...

I got an Autocom instead of the Starcom- it was on sale at the BMW MOA rally... no other reason than price- and the wiring for bike power came with an inline fuse- pretty sure it's 750 ma...so they're not drawing close to 3 amps. Radar detector was a similar deal- 500 ma maybe?