2 fuses on a mono amp?

[Sophia13913]

The first amp I got was a 2 channel (Edge EDA350.2-E7) and it has 2×30A fuses on it, which made sense to me bc it's a 2 channel right? But I've just got a mono amp (Kenwood X501-1) which has 2×30A fuses too. Why would they not just use a single 40A or 60A? In the manual it says its current consumption is 34A, and with the Edge it doesn't say. I wouldn't care but for deciding what fuse I should use on the line from the battery. 120A? 100A? Thankyou for reading, sorry if Im making a problem out of nothing and just worrying too much

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[Popwarhomie 5,000+ posts]

Your power wire fuse is for protecting the wire from melting and causing a fire. Fuse for what the wire is rated at. So it will pop the fuse before burning down your car in an accident.

 

[Sophia13913]

Your power wire fuse is for protecting the wire from melting and causing a fire. Fuse for what the wire is rated at. So it will pop the fuse before burning down your car in an accident.

sorry for being dumb thankyou very much

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

Why would they not just use a single 40A or 60A?

Because smaller fuses are easier to fit on a board, they are cheaper, easier for a consumer to find, and likely the connectors are cheaper, and multiple smaller fuses is considered to be safer than one giant one as they should open faster in the event that they're needed.

With the exception of the latest Zed designs and old school multichannels (which were multiple different amp boards in the same heatsink) pretty much all amps just use one power supply so the separate fuses aren't typically for separate power supplies but reflect total consumption of the amp as needed for the one power supply

 

[Sophia13913]

Because smaller fuses are easier to fit on a board, they are cheaper, easier for a consumer to find, and likely the connectors are cheaper, and multiple smaller fuses is considered to be safer than one giant one as they should open faster in the event that they're needed.

With the exception of the latest Zed designs and old school multichannels (which were multiple different amp boards in the same heatsink) pretty much all amps just use one power supply so the separate fuses aren't typically for separate power supplies but reflect total consumption of the amp as needed for the one power supply

Thankyou very much for sharing your knowledge! decided on a 200A fuse. Using 1/0 awg that says its max is 345, but I shoudlnt be pulling anywhere near 200 anyway so meh

 

[Firewalker]

Always better to go bigger with wire & power then having to redo it down the line. 1/0 is what most people use unless they get into the some high wattage installs. I run 250 ANL in mine. One at the battery then one for each amplifier in a fuse block back at the amplifiers. Do the same for the grounds but without fuses obviously. One line from the main ground then splits off to the 2 amplifiers.

 

[Sophia13913]

Always better to go bigger with wire & power then having to redo it down the line. 1/0 is what most people use unless they get into the some high wattage installs. I run 250 ANL in mine. One at the battery then one for each amplifier in a fuse block back at the amplifiers. Do the same for the grounds but without fuses obviously. One line from the main ground then splits off to the 2 amplifiers.

I think Im just gonna use 8awg grounds, probably bigger at the battery end though. For what I have having the amps linking into a common ground Would just be unnecessarily complicating things

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

decided on a 200A fuse.

Generally you don't want to over-fuse, but for your primary 200A is fine to protect against fire if the wire somehow shorts which is the point of fusing at the battery.