DIY: How to Test Fuses

hello viewers of 4di wires here back on tutorial video for everyone done this particular video here I'll be doing a demonstration how to test the fuse in your vehicle now this particular vehicle I am working on here is a 2003 Dodge Dakota but this does apply to other vehicles as well now first we want to start by doing is determining where your fuse box panel is now some will be located inside the vehicle either on the side of the dash such as shown here on this Dodge some can be located underneath the dash others can be located under the hood or even in the trunk glovebox under the backseat or maybe a couple different areas depending on what those fuses are powering now as you can see on this cover here I have removed it there is some information printed on the backside of it now this tells what fuse does what and where it is located and also what type of amperage is required for fuse if you do require to replace it now sometimes this information will be on the back side of these covers other times you may have a little diagram printed around the outside here somewhere which will say also what fuse does what or you'll have to refer to your owner's manual now you can see there is numbering on here and this one's nicely labeled as well because it does have the numbers corresponding to the fuse itself other times what will happen here you can see this one also has a diagram on the bottom side they won't always be numbered on the fuse panel but they'll have this diagram you can go by and you have to orientate this diagram here in order to match the fuse panels I just show you a little closer up of lists here we have number one interior lamps 15 amp number two horn 20 amp number three radio two then I was also 20 amp now going back to the panel here you can see it's nicely printed on here with all the numbers on the top side you may be a little hard to see on the camera but you can see number one we have here number two number three number four now this one is very nicely laid out and very easy to fall other ones maybe not so much now also you may notice the fuses are different colors as well now this does determine what amperage they are they also have an amperage either printed on the side of them or even stamp on the top such as these you can see the yellow ones are 20 the tens are red the blues are 15 now for testing these circles there's a couple of different methods which we can use and I'll be showing you both of them you can either use a test light which are fairly inexpensive to buy and they are fairly easy to come across or you can also use a multimeter and we'll be using on the voltage setting to determine that there is at least power it's that circuit now you don't want to be using a resistance test on these when they're in the vehicle because what can happen this can send actually a small amount of voltage through the system and therefore especially with a lot of the vehicles being a lot more electronics in them there's a possible risk of damaging something if you do in ohms test you want to do that when the fuse is out of the vehicle and I'll show you how to do that as well now as for testing some of these circuits you also want to make sure that these circuits are powered up now some of these circuits which I'll show you in a minute don't require to have the key on or anything so Suri's on and they will show that there is power there and the fuses operating correctly other ones such as the radio you'll have to turn the vehicle on to the accessory setting the first method which will be starting with here is using a test light now you can see it does resemble somewhat of a screwdriver now depending on which one you do purchase will depending on what it looks like now what I have here basically is it just has its start test probe on the one end and then the opposite in here it does go to a wire which leads to an alligator clip on here now this alligator clip I do have it clipped onto a bolt on the door hinge here now I've already determined this is a sufficient ground spot now the basic reason why I'm using that ground there is because I don't have enough wire to lead to the battery which is under the hood now you also may have the same scenario so if you can find another bolt around your vehicle which does lead to a proper ground that's what you want to use now on this opposite and here I'll be using this to go to the power supply now before we do use a Tesla you always want to make sure it does work and the bulb is functioning properly in the inside here so simply just go ahead and test it on your batteries and the positive negative just to ensure it does light up now basically what this principle here is as I just mentioned a second going to go you need a sufficient ground and a sufficient power supply in order to light this bulb up it's a fairly simple principle but does work great and it is very fast we're testing these now when testing these fuses here you'll see on both the top side here and going to the bottom side we'll have like a little square hole there which does lead to the metal pin in the inside there now the reason why it does have on the both sides here is because in the center portion here this is where the fuse normally does burn out the once I will be the power supplied in then it'll be the feasible circuit which would be the center here and then power going out basically so first what we'll do here is we'll just test it here now this one here this for this circuit I do not need to have the vehicle or any of the accessories powered up to ensure it does work so you can see it does light up I will go to the opposite side and you see it also does work again now moving on to another one see that works and that one works as well now if we go down to a little further here now I've already determined which one this is say we'll be using number 18 which I believe was for the radio you can see it doesn't light up whatsoever that's on both sides now if you do find that one side does light up the other one doesn't that determines that the fuse is no good but in this particular scenario here this doesn't light up whatsoever now in order to get this one to work here we do have to turn the accessories key on so once that's on I know the radio is on so I go ahead and test it and you can see it does work now again if I were to find out the one side does light up do that it doesn't that is a fault with the fuse now when using the multimeter here you want to have it set on the voltage setting to lowest one which is just the two places here because we are working on a 12 volt application now again same principle as the test light want to make sure that a ground probe is at a sufficient spot to ensure that we do have a reading I'm also using the same spot as well on the doorpost with the bolt now using our positive probe which is go ahead and touch the test spot on the fuse here you can see we do have a good reading again we also have a good reading on that fuse so we know that this fuse is working correctly oh the next one same thing and again the same thing now if you do find that there is somewhat of a fluctuation maybe a couple volts between each of those test spots there that could be you either have a dirty probe or even just the test spots on the fuse itself are just a little bit dirty which could fluctuate the readings and all the times what we can do here is we can just do a visual inspection of the fuse itself now all the times you can see when it's actually broken in the inside they're similar happens to a light bulb sometimes the filament will actually have a small hairline break and you won't actually be able to see it visually but you'll notice that the light bulb doesn't work at all so you can see this one here what we have this is the one style here this is a small style which is found on a lot of the dodge applications but they are normally a little bit bigger than this on just a regular style one you can see the plastic housing is somewhat transparent sometimes you can see them through the top now this one here you can't because it's got the number stamped on it but if you do pull it out you can see it from the side and when I just hold the light right there you can see that there is the u-shaped connection in the inside there and a lot of times what'll happen there's a little burnout and you can see it on either the casing or you can see there is a break in between there now this one here this is found on a European vehicle now this is just one I pulled from the BMW you can see on the top side here that does have a little window on them now I did have an older style BMW or doesn't actually have a window at all it just has a wire in the inside you can see it actually a lot easier than this one here you can see you can do a visual inspection with these ones when they are still in the vehicle now as for the last test here we can also use a multimeter and we can do a continuity test now this particular one here what I've done is I set it to the three place I'm setting here as you can see on the bottom just taking my two test probes again you want to make sure you do this when the fuse is out of the vehicle because the resistance test does put a small amount of current through there which can damage any electronics in a vehicle especially with the newer vehicles having quite a bit of electronics so we'll do here is go on the one pin with a test program and the next one here go for a reading and you can see that this fuse is good so this concludes the rest of my tutorial video if you have any comments or questions please don't hesitate to post and below also please subscribe to my channel and like my video thank you for watching

Channel: 4DIYers

Views: 318,307

Keywords: 4DIYers, tutorial, how, help, diy, guide, fuse, radio, window, power, 12, 12v, volt, voltage, resistance, continuity, electronic, electrical, electric, multi, meter, multimeter, light, lamp, test, testing, fault, fusible, link, burnt, not, working, headlight, tail light, tail, signal, ecu, computer, 2003, dodge, dakota, mopar, chrysler, manual, easy, cheap, quick, trunk, dash, dashboard, glove, box, compartment, bmw, german, american, USA, truck, van, car, not working, doesn't work, seat, rear, underneath, engine, bay, fuel, pump, dme, no start, start

Id: gKgmIcmp7eo

Length: 8min 49sec (529 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 29 2014