I am thinking of using E-fuse or smart high side switch for protection and power switching applications of engine loads such as coil, injector, fuel pump, do they have any advantages over each other? Which one is recommended to use for these loads?

 

The automotive industry seems to use real fuses. There's probably a good reason for that.

 

I am thinking of using E-fuse or smart high side switch for protection and power switching applications of engine loads such as coil, injector, fuel pump, do they have any advantages over each other? Which one is recommended to use for these loads?

The motivation to use a suitable standard fuse is that an occasional short circuit on a line, which causes an engine shutdown, after which the protection is reset, makes diagnostics quite challenging.
My experience was with a Dodge Shadow that had one electronic fuel injector that would momentarily short circuit the supply to the body. That would cause the fuel control module to switch off until the ignition was switched off and then back on. The very nebulous fault message was "controller reset".
An opened fuse would have narrowed the search to one simple wire harness with six injectors and the diagnostics would have been simple.
Instead I sold the car with the caution that I made no claim that the engine would run for any length of time. I made certain that they understood the problem before I took the money.
So being able to find a failed fuse can be a very handy diagnostic help. Thus, fuses are our friend.
One other question is How often do you experience fuse failures that are not the result of actual hardware failure?? In 55 years of owning used cars I do not recall any fuse failures that were not the result of fairly obvious human errors, and those failures were not in the engine system. A friend had a car that did experience random fuse popping after it had been in collisions and sustained body damage in several locations. And one car owned by an acquaintance did burn up due to a poor installation of a tape player deck beneath a power seat,
Certainly a Demolition Derby vehicle might benefit from auto reset protection although on those vehicles it is important to adequately harden the electrical system
Tactical military vehicles are a different case because of intentional damage by enemy actions. That is an entirely different area..

 

I'll agree with just sticking to traditional fuses. Normally any time you blow a fuse you want the circuit to remain open until you properly diagnose why it blew in the first place. Most automotive components fail with an open circuit anyways so there really is no advantage to anything else. My daily beater has 288,000 miles on the original fuses except the ABS which was caused by a broken wire at the pump that shorted to the body.

 

For 20 years I drove the kind of vehicles that have caveats like "if you exceed 25mph while turning right, the fuel pump fuse will blow" so I can understand the appeal. I'm sure I've spent cumulative weeks of time contemplating having the ability to just reach under the dash and flip a breaker back on instead of digging through the pennies in the ashtray hoping to find a fuse I already know isn't in there because I used the last one a month ago.

I also see the logic of the other arguments here.

I think there is room for an improvement over replaceable fuses but it I don't think it's some software controlled auto-resetting device. When it trips it needs to trip. A human needs to go digging for the source of the fault (or at least open the hood) and manually address the issue hands-on. So if there is any improvement to be made I think it is in the form of breaker box where the fuse box used to be.

 

Back in 1967 we determined that an aluminum foil gum wrapper wrapped around a failed glass fuse was goodfor5 amps if done carefully. And a double layer of regular aluminum foil burger wrap, around the glass fuse was good for 20 amps. So here was no more shortage of fuses. Newer cars with those blade fuses that work with fast-on crimped on connectors in a fuse block are not so easy to replace. But they are more reliable and the fuse block is much cheaper and more compact,
But it was the end of foil fuses!!!