Basics of Fuses

Electronics make up a huge part of our daily lives. Every industry in the world today utilizes some form of electronic equipment. While this has proven to improve the quality of life for millions of people around the world, this also presents its own problems. Recently a friend of mine who works on hospital machinery asked me if DigiKey sells fuse kits. He told me two stories that inspired me to write an article on fuses. The first story involved someone replacing a fast blow fuse with a slow blow fuse. This resulted in thousands of dollars of damage and hours of work. The second story involved missing over half a day of work tracking down a fuse for another board.

A fuse is a device that is meant to protect a piece of electronic equipment. They are great because they are inexpensive compared to the equipment they are protecting. They can be detrimental because they are designed to break when an overcurrent situation happens. While a fuse will protect a piece of equipment, it will also temporarily render it useless. This is where DigiKey comes in. DigiKey carries thousands of different fuses that can work in almost any application. The article that I wrote goes over some of the different styles of fuses, some popular sizes, and some of the important vernacular that is used in the industry. Applications for different kinds of fuses are discussed, along with how to find them on the DigiKey website and how to find accessories if needed. Fuse kits are also discussed, which can come in handy for people like my friend who I mentioned earlier

Fuses are great ways to protect electronic equipment, but it is always important to have a spare fuse that will operate the same as the previous fuse. Hopefully the article “Fuse Tutorial” helps to define what is important to look for and how to ultimately procure these from DigiKey.