Fuse for LED strip controller

[tomas25]

Hello,

I am building LED strip controller with esp32 and 5V-5A power suplly. During prototyping I somehow touched output (5V) wires from power supply, made short circuit and they started to melt down. Power supply shoud have short circuit protection and I think, this was due to thinness of jumper wires I used during protoryping.

However, I would like to add fuse to avoid fire things up in some improbable similar situation. I am thinking about adding fuse on input or output of power supply. I measured power supply input current with fully bright strip (~130mA). What do you think is the best solution - add 5A car-like fuse on output or 160mA 250V fuse on input of power supply?

Thanks!

 

[Bluejets]

If the single insulated wiring is your output, they're not that "thin" as you describe.
They'd probably handle 10-15a without a problem so my guess is the short would have produced a much higher current to melt the insulation.

5A fuse on the output will be fine to cover short circuit situation, but may be too large to protect your output circuit.
What is the output current requirement..???

Also if cabling has melted, might be a good idea to replace same.