Every fully electrified house has either a fuse box or a main panel box with circuit breakers. This is the distribution center for the power coming into your house. Without them, you would have one whopping current running through your walls that would burn out just about any appliance you tried to run on it.
Fuses were used until approximately 1950, when circuit breakers became the standard installation for new construction. The fuses most of us are familiar with are the round, screw-in glass types with a visible alloy strip inside the glass. These are called plug fuses. Cartridge fuses, which have a cylindrical shape, are the other common type of fuse.
If the current running across a plug fuse’s alloy strip exceeds the amperage of the fuse, the strip will melt, thus stopping the flow of electricity. There is nothing inherently wrong with a system using fuses, but they are dated and inconvenient. If you don’t have any spares around when one “blows”—you should always replace a fuse with one of the same amperage—you’re out of luck. The other problem with plug fuses is that a fuse with an amperage setting of 15, 20, 25, or 30 can be installed as a replacement for a burnt-out fuse even if the original size should have been 15 amps. Even though it is physically possible to install the wrong fuse, doing so could overload a circuit and might even start a fire in your home. To prevent this, the installation of an “S” type adapter will limit the maximum fuse size to 20 amps.
Fuses were used until approximately 1950, when circuit breakers became the standard installation for new construction. The fuses most of us are familiar with are the round, screw-in glass types with a visible alloy strip inside the glass. These are called plug fuses. Cartridge fuses, which have a cylindrical shape, are the other common type of fuse.
If the current running across a plug fuse’s alloy strip exceeds the amperage of the fuse, the strip will melt, thus stopping the flow of electricity. There is nothing inherently wrong with a system using fuses, but they are dated and inconvenient. If you don’t have any spares around when one “blows”—you should always replace a fuse with one of the same amperage—you’re out of luck. The other problem with plug fuses is that a fuse with an amperage setting of 15, 20, 25, or 30 can be installed as a replacement for a burnt-out fuse even if the original size should have been 15 amps. Even though it is physically possible to install the wrong fuse, doing so could overload a circuit and might even start a fire in your home. To prevent this, the installation of an “S” type adapter will limit the maximum fuse size to 20 amps.
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