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Old 03-11-2017, 09:14 AM   #28
rwidman
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City: North Charleston, SC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by O C Diver View Post
...... The point that I was originally making was that incandescent lights don't need to be fused to prevent a risk of fire, the circuit does. LED emitters should be fused to protect against the extremely small risk of a fire when they fail. Since the emitter doesn't have a fuse, prudence dictates you limit the circuit (with a fuse or breaker) to the minimum amount of amperage required.

Ted
Your point wasn't clear to me.

You are correct and in fact, I did that when I changed my interior lights to LEDs. I measured the current with all the lights on and one circuit was a little over three amps, the other about four amps. I swapped out the twenty amp breakers for five amp breakers. These replacements were "fixtures" with small pigtail leads.

It's fine to use smaller breakers or fuses than the wire calls for but not the other way around.


I did not change the breaker for my navigation lights because they were "bulbs", not replacement fixtures so there are no smaller pigtail wires that need protection. Also, the original incandescent bulbs were saved as spares.
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