Blown fuse 300B paramount

[docbob52]

After about 200 hours one of my Paramounts decided to blow a fuse. Since I have done nothing unusual like moving it or plugging other components in to it, should I  be alarmed and break it down and look for shorts and check the voltages and resistances?

I am wondering if it might be related to the mains power.  Here in LA (lower Alabama) out here in the rural country we have lots of power outages and spikes and often the power line breakers surge 3 times when resetting for a short from a tree limb touching the line.  BTW the mains voltage runs rather high at 123 volts instead of 117 Volts.

I replaced the fuse with a slow blow 1Amp and it is working fine now.  All advice appreciated.

[Grainger49]

Bob,

Do what I have done, go to Home Depot and buy a whole house surge suppressor.  It must be mounted as the first two breaker positions in the service panel.

Just about everybody's voltage is somewhere around the mid 120V range.  Mine, in the city of Knoxville, is 124V normally.

[adamct]

How can I measure my home voltage? Can I use my $30 DMM? I assume red goes into the longer slot, and black into the shorter slot?

[Lar]

Using your multimeter, hot is the short slot (red) neutral is the long slot (black)
Set your meter to AC volts.   

[adamct]

Oops. Thanks!

[Grainger49]

Alternating Current, AC, has no permanent polarity.  It changes 120 times a second.  So either lead in either of the flat blade sockets.  The odd one is ground.

[docbob52]

All interesting discussion ,  but still do you think the blown fuse warrents me retesting the circuit

[vetmed]

Fuses are somewhat like incandescent light bulbs, some will fail after only a few on/off cycles, most will go for thousands of hours before needing replacing. I'd try replacing the fuse before getting out the multimeter, just my 2 cents worth.

Regards
     Robert Lees