Inside the 100A semiconductor battery pack fuse
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The insides of a high power fuse
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The battery packs of all hybrid cars have a very special fuse to protect the circuits and the pack from short circuit and over current conditions.An Insight owner came over so that I could help him diagnose his IMA problem, and we found tht the main 100A fuse was blown. He had already replaced the inverter stage, which must have been the cause of the fuse failure.
Opening a high voltage high current DC circuit requires a special type of fuse. It is called a semiconductor fuse, but this name is misleading. There are no semiconductors in the fuse, the name describes it's ability to blow extremely quickly so any semiconductor devices it is powering will be protected, and this means rapidly quenching the hot arc that forms when a high power DC circuit is opened. The metal element is similar to a regular fuse, but the fuse is filled with an insulating glass like powder that rapidly melts and quenches the arc.I opened the blown fuse so we could see how it is constructed.
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