On Sun, 2 May 2004 10:55:17 -0400, "Doug Dotson"
wrote:

I guess I had better move my entire breaker panel into the
battery compartment then. All my equipment is protected with breakers.

No, just put a large "main" fuse near your battery and that will
protect in case there is short circut. Have your panel and circut
brakers the way they are now. Needless to say, make sure you have
your fuses in the positive lead.

I have a large 20 A fuse near the battery: it would blow if there was
a major short circut such as my positive cable coming to contact with
ground potential. No need to replace that often, as individual
equipment have 2-5 A fuses in the panel.

Two fuses and several switches will add some resistance, but voltage
drop will not be a problem unless you are running something in
100..150 Watt range.

Other people have already posted warnings, and I would also like to
emphasize that lead-accid batteries have very low internal resistance,
leading to high short circut currents. It is possible to melt a wrench
or other tools if they come to contact with plus and minus terminals.

Almost twenty years ago I was in the Army (Signal Corps), and in field
exercises we run high power HF radios with car battery power before
AC generators were up and running. Could get on the air a few minutes
faster.. Anyway, this one guy managed to short circut a heavy cable
used to jump start cars. Poof, it vanished in a cloud of smoke. That
time we were glad we had gas masks on , that probably saved his
eyesight.

Mike
OH1NZQ