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Choosing a power supply box, do i go with fuses or fuseless?

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I have seen boxes with individual fuses and ones that have "Auto shutdown Fuseless cirquit" feature. Which is more desirable and why?

 

Thanks!

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the auto-shutdown ones will more than likely be dc power supplies, they are usually switched mode, like modern pc power supplies.

 

Like a modern pc power supply it will shutdown if its shorted out, the advantage of this is the speed at which it shutsdown can help to reduce the risk of damage to any faulty camera/wiring etc.

Once the fault has been removed, and the psu has had time to recover, it will automatically be ok when switched back on, with no need to replace any physcal fuse.

 

You can get ptc (i think they are called) fuses which are resettable, often used in pro ac supplies, but they blow like a normal fuse, ie not as fast as a switched mode would shutdown, but do reset after a rest/removal of fault.

 

You could use a pc power supply to supply 12v cams, many of them, and they should shut down in the event of a short, but as they are not individually protected, all cams would go down in the event of one failure.

 

You should be looking for a psu with individually fused outputs, or individually shutdown protected outputs.

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use ptc on a client and a regular for testing............testing allows you to manually change fuse and toggle on/off when you want without turning the whole ps off.

 

ptc's are no prob so far

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I have worked in Industrial Manufacturing for almost 30 years, so most of my experience is with much higher (480 3ph) voltages. I always trust fuses over anything else. Even with such low voltages. For the last 3 years, I have been building my own CCTV control power panels, simple ones that include both 12vdc and 24vac in them. I always use the "DIN mounted" style fuse holders. Mostly Allen Bradleys or Square D's. They take the normal AGC Bussman style fuse. This way, you can open the fuse holder up, take power off a camera, work on it, then put power back to camera without taking wires off, etc. Just a thought!

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go with a fused isolated Altronix Power Supply and you will be good to go.

The cheap no name ones arent worth the small savings IMO ..

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