I have seen some setups with distributed fuse blocks near the amps, and a big fuse next to the battery. This confuses me. I have a nice big Lanzar VHC that needs a 60 amp fuse and a Jensen amp (don't laugh ) I have I'm replacing soon that has a 30 amp fuse. What kind of fuse would I need for near the battery? Would a circuit breaker handle the job too?

 

A fuse near the battery is a must. What if a short in the power cable occurs between the battery and the fuse block near the amp somewhere. Without a fuse near the battery there is nothing to break the circuit and you end up with your car catching fire. Having a fused D-block is redundant. The amps already have their own fuses so the only other fuse you need is the one at the battery.

 

I believe the rule is not to have the fuse more than 12 inches from the battery. If it ever does short out, you'd prolly want just 12 inches of power wire burn up rather then the entire car with the fuse in the back

 

Yea, just make sure to throw in the fuse near the battery and make it pretty close to the battery...also I think that the optimal length of a ground is about 18 inches or so.....just make sure you get a fuse congruent with the type of system that you have that way you either aren't blowing them constantly or get one so big that the car catches fire first before the fuse blows...

 

As long as the ground wire is the same guage as the power wire length isn't really important. In order to ground both my amps to the same place and reduce the possibility of a ground loop I had to make the sub amp's ground about 5' long.

 

 

Thanks for the help so far, dudes. So, what amp# would I need for the fuse? And I guess my idea of a circuit breaker was not a good one?

 

you can still use the circuit breaker if you like as long as it matched the amp requirement. I'm actually going to be using a Stinger 100amp circuit breaker on mine when I rewire my system.

 

To determine the fuse size just add up the values of the fuses that will be connected to the power cable. If you have two amps connected to it and each amp has a 30 amp fuse your main fuse by the battery should be 60 amps.

 

Believe it.

 

Not trying to dis on you LS1, but shouldn't fuse size be directly related to the wire size? To give you a correct fuse size, we would need to know what gauge wire you are running from the battery.
Wire Gauge Recommended
Maximum Fuse Size
00 awg 400 amps
0 awg 325 amps
1 awg 250 amps
2 awg 200 amps
4 awg 125 amps
6 awg 80 amps
8 awg 50 amps
10 awg 30 amps
12 awg 20 amps
14 awg 15 amps
16 awg 7.5 amps
These are the recommended maximum fuse ratings for the corresponding wire size. Using a smaller fuse than what's recommended here will be perfectly safe.
He could be using 12awg, and you just told him to put on a 60amp fuse!!

 

Anyone dumb enough to use 12awg wire for their power cable deserves to have their setup fry.

 

I've seen worse........ some people just don't know any better. They just wanna get power from point A to point B.
I would never wish the horror of a frying system on anybody! Or even worse.... their whole car!!

 

Never said I didnt.

 

Gotta love it when electricians (try) to wire their cars.