… to getting the Tri-Paragon mounted into the bird!

This post covers the past couple of days, where on Saturday I received the 0.5 amp ATO blade fuses from DigiKey.  These are an answer to a question I had for Rich on the AG6s, since I had the AG6s both wired together at one fuse position on the E-Bus through a 1 amp fuse. The install manual states to use a 1/4 amp fuse, and I figured a 1 amp fuse would be ok for two units combined, but wanted to check.

Well, as somewhat par usual for this build, Rich stressed that I really should follow that instruction as closely as possible.  Thus my push to order 0.5 amp fuses to use for the pair of these AG6 units (needing only one of course, but another 2 for spares).

Now, I cold have gone with a glass 0.5 amp fuse, but I didn’t want to rewire the AG6 power leads and renumber the wires and E-Bus fuse block.  I’ve had enough of that stuff and prefer to avoid the time and effort if at all possible.

I compared these 0.5 amp ATO fuses with the ATC fuses and noted right off the bat a significant size difference, albeit mainly in height.  To be clear, you can find a lot of ATC/ATO fuse products, and having never (knowingly) worked with ATO fuses before, I thought the differences were a bit more minor.

Here I grabbed the first shot to show that the 0.5 amp ATO fuse was NOT fitting into the BUSS brand fuse blocks I have on hand… thus pic #2 to show that the label specifically denotes this as a “ATC FUSE PANEL”.

Here is one of those dual ATC/ATO products I mentioned, where either ATO or ATC fuse fits into this inline fuse holder.

After pondering my options, and considering going the inline fuse route off the E-Bus fuse panel’s threaded connecting stud, I wanted to first try a little experiment with one of the three 0.5 amp ATO fuses I bought.

First, I used my micrometer to measure and annotate the width, length, etc. of the ATO vs the ATC fuses.  Then, using a razor knife and Dremel I trimmed down the plastic a bit on all 4 sides.  Here we have the trimmed ATO fuse on the left, and standard unmodified one on the right.

Of course I didn’t want to take too much material off, where the ATO fuse wouldn’t fit tightly, so I took my time in this iterative process to ensure the ATO fuse fit snugly with the plastic and not by just relying on the metal blades (although admittedly that’s where the majority of the clamp force is, I highly suspect).

And here we have it… Voila!  The whittled down 0.5 amp ATO fuse fits in my ATC Buss fuse block.

And here it is installed in its actual position on the E-Bus.

Speaking of busses, I did a thorough review of every position on the Main Buss, getting into the manual for each connected device and component, verifying that the components ID’d matched my diagram, and evaluating each fuse rating per each manual to ensure they were correct.

I swapped the TCW Tech Smart System off the main buss with a component on the E-Bus, since I wanted the Smart System on the E-Bus in case I ever needed to do an engine restart while on E-Bus only power (I know, rare, but potential catastrophic to not have it on the bus with power when you need it).

I started doing the evaluation for the E-Bus in the same manner as the Main Bus, but it was getting late and I wanted something a little less mind-numbing (and physical) to knock out before I quit for the evening, so I made up my last (ACTUAL LAST ha!) Fuse Link, this one a 20 AWG fuse link for the 16 AWG nose gear wire.

Tomorrow I’ll get back to finalizing my E-Bus review and verification, and will work on wiring up Relay #4, which is one of the last relays I have to gin up.  I’ll detail more about it when I show some pics of it tomorrow.

And, as per usual, still PUSHING FORWARD!