I am frequently asked why a fuse is required when installing an inverter. After all, doesn’t the inverter have built in protection? Yes, a quality inverter has multiple protection features that help prevent damage to the inverter. What an inverter does not protect against is a short in your battery cables.

Let’s take a moment to look at a hypothetical situation where you’ve installed a 1000 watt inverter into your work truck for recharging cordless tool batteries. You’ve taken the time to run a set of cables from the battery, through the vehicle’s firewall, and into the cab of the truck. You’ve experienced months of trouble free operation and everything seems to be fine. However, under the hood the cables have bounced around causing the protective coating to wear off where the cables rest against the metal chassis of the truck. If the wire in the center of the positive and negative cables touch, or touch the metal chassis, you will have a short on your hands. If you consider where the short has occurred, there is no way for the inverter to protect against this. Without an overcurrent device in place you could end up damaging your cables, battery and inverter. You will also have created a potentially harmful hazard.

There are other reasons to consider an overcurrent protection device as well. What if the inverter itself has an internal short and the protection features fail? What if something metal falls between the negative and positive post of the inverter? While these scenarios may be unlikely, they are possible. Why not invest a small amount of money and time to install an inline fuse to protect against these worst case scenarios? Think about this. Would you want to live in a house wired up with no protection breakers?

Even though an inverter will work without a fuse, and it may seem unnecessary to install one, I strongly urge you to install an inline fuse to protect both your installation and yourself. If you have any questions feel free to call us at 800-367-3019 or email me at Patrick@donrowe.com