How would you put a typical cylindrical glass fuse onto a breadboard? I can't seem to find any fuse holders that are breadboard friendly...
Thanks!
You could use one like this and solder wires to it:
http://www.alliedelec.com/1/products/380564-panel-mount-plastic-3ag-fuses-fuseholder.html
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A polyfuse might be useful for basic circuit protection....
Through-hole polyfuses:
But why would you want that? A breadboard can't handle big currents at all. If you try the breadboard itself will act as a fuse and melt 
So if you have currents you think you need to fuse it's probably better to solder (the high current part) onto a prototype PCB.
To avoid melting the breadboard is a good reason for me xD
Even if you don't expect big currents, a faulty circuit can lead to unexpected big currents... That's the point of a fuse after all!
That's why you use a propper power supply... Current limit for the win.
But if you want to use a fuse just attach it in the leads to the breadboard. The leads of all the fuse holders are huge and will make the breadboard unreliable. A 1A slow fuse should do the job.
Thanks everyone! For those who may have seen my other posts in Project Guidance, I'm working on a car battery voltage monitor, and I want to add a fuse into the mix to provide extra protection to my circuit.
Maybe it makes sense to simply solder the incoming (+) wire directly to the fuse holder, and solder another wire from the fuse holder to my protoboard? This way the fuse is just loose, not connected directly to the board...?
Thanks!
Sure, there's all kinds of inline fuseholders available
Sacha22:
To avoid melting the breadboard is a good reason for me xD
20-something years ago, when I went to a tech school to learn electronics - we had a guy in one of our labs do something very wrong with his circuit. We were studying the 555 timer, and in the lab he had his all hooked up. All of us were more or less "heads down" on our own 555 projects, when all of a sudden there was a brilliant flash (like a strobe went off) with a loud "BANG" (like a firecracker) - along with a yell and smoke.
Basically - his circuit had overloaded his powersupply nearly instantly! The flash and crack was the sound of one of the hookup wires he was using turning into a fuse. The smoke was from the insulation burning off. The wire basically melted and vaporized (just a piece - the rest was a smoking mess). The 555 had gotten so hot it had melted into the breadboard!
My friend, who was working with me on our lab together - managed to get that breadboard from the guy (he had to buy a new breadboard anyhow). The 555 was buried into the plastic - no way to easily remove it. Amazingly - it still worked! We wired up several different 555 circuits on it to check its operation, and we couldn't find any problems with it (not that we would trust it for anything but an experiment).
septillion:
That's why you use a propper power supply... Current limit for the win.
That guy in our class was using a "proper power supply" - these were some nice current limited dual-output bench supplies (our tuition money well spent, I suppose). He just forgot (as we were taught at the beginning of the course) to turn down the current and to set the voltage properly, etc. His oversight led to an interesting day in class, and a teaching moment for those nearby.
septillion:
But if you want to use a fuse just attach it in the leads to the breadboard. The leads of all the fuse holders are huge and will make the breadboard unreliable. A 1A slow fuse should do the job.
I agree that you don't want to stick fuse-holder leads into a breadboard - they are way to big and may damage things. The 1 amp slo-blow fuse is a good idea; placing it in a fuse holder would be ok - but what can also be done is to purchase pre-soldered thru-hole lead fuses (you can also make them yourself using off-cut pieces of leads if you have them). Such fuses are meant to be used for thru-hole mounting on a PCB, where the fuse is not meant to be easily replaced.
osmosis311:
Thanks everyone! For those who may have seen my other posts in Project Guidance, I'm working on a car battery voltage monitor, and I want to add a fuse into the mix to provide extra protection to my circuit.Maybe it makes sense to simply solder the incoming (+) wire directly to the fuse holder, and solder another wire from the fuse holder to my protoboard? This way the fuse is just loose, not connected directly to the board...?
If you are doing any kind of work using an automotive battery - you want to place your fuse as close as physically possible to the positive terminal of the battery. Automobile batteries can dump several hundred amps instantly into a circuit (you haven't lived until you've seen a wrench or screwdriver vaporized by one - always remove the positive cable from your battery before working on a car, kiddos!). By putting the fuse closer to the breadboard, the wire leading to the battery can instead become "the fuse".
You might look to monitor the battery voltage, instead of directly from the battery, from an accessory wire off the vehicle's fuse box (maybe a terminal for the radio, or for some other non-critical system like the cigarette lighter/power socket - whatever you do, don't tap into the one for the ECC or an air-bag!).
All the OP has to do is take a file to the pins so they fit into the breadboard holes.
As mentioned before, a second option is to solder breadboard size wires to the fuse terminals, simple.
Edit: Or solder header pins to the terminals.
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