Automotive fuse

Automotive fuses are a class of fuses used to protect the wiring and electrical equipment for motor vehicles. They are generally rated for circuits no higher than 32 volts direct current, but some types are rated for 42-volt electrical systems. They are occasionally used in non-automotive electrical products. Automotive fuses are typically housed inside one or more fuse boxes (also called an integrated power module (IPM)) within the vehicle, typically on one side of the engine compartment and/or under the dash near the steering wheel. Some fuses or circuit breakers may nonetheless be placed elsewhere, such as near the cabin fan or air bag controller. They also exist as circuit breakers that are resettable using a switch.

There may be a fuse for ignition off draw (IOD), which controls the drawing of electric current in a vehicle while it is shut off; removing this fuse while the vehicle is shut off for more than a few weeks will prevent excessive depletion of the battery.^{[citation needed]}

Blade fuses (also called spade or plug-in fuses), with a plastic body and two prongs that fit into sockets, are mostly used in automobiles. Other common usage is in equipment with comparatively simple, low voltage DC electrical systems such as towed campers and marine applications such as sailboats and motor boats (typically smaller cabin cruisers).

Each fuse is printed with the rated current in amperes on the top.

These types of fuses come in six different physical dimensions:

Blade type fuses can be mounted in:

Where space permits, a miniature circuit breaker is sometimes used to replace a blade-type fuse in the same fuse holder.

Blade fuses use a common coloring scheme for the Micro2, Micro3, low-profile (LP) Mini, Mini, and regular size fuses, and a partial color similarity with the maxi size fuses. The following table shows the commonly available fuses for each size group.