Watched a guy replace a fuse with a paperclip last month at a shop in Austin

I work at a small repair shop off 6th Street and a customer came in with a dead microwave. He told me he already fixed it himself by jamming a paperclip where the fuse goes. I had to explain that's how you start a fire, not fix a microwave. He argued with me for 10 minutes saying it worked fine for a week. Has anyone else seen people bypass fuses like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

jesse_cooper12d ago

Had a guy at my shop try the same thing with a toaster oven. Paperclip worked for a day, then the whole thing started smoking and tripped the breaker. Told him the fuse is there for a reason, it blows when something's wrong. If you bypass it, you're just hiding the problem until something catches fire. He didn't argue after that, mostly because the smell of burning plastic was still hanging in the air.

tyler17612d ago

Saw a video from a fire safety channel a while back about this exact thing. They tested bypassing fuses in different appliances and pretty much everything either melted or caught fire within a few days. That paperclip trick is just playing roulette with your house, man.