[Al Skierkiewicz]

Everyone,
R65
E. If powering the compressor, the fuse on a Spike H-Bridge Relay may be replaced with a 20A Snap-Action circuit breaker.

No other provision is stated.

The Spike can handle short high current loads but as pointed out, the contacts in the relays will be damaged above the design currents particularly with the inductive loads provided my motors. The arcing that takes place can (and often does) welds the contacts together making it impossible to disable motors from the field when commanded. The Spike contains a fuse to protect the contacts, the resetting breaker can easily pass damaging current before trip and will immediately reset.
The compressor presents a 25+ amp load during start but rapidly returns to about 12 amps max run current. If you use the supplied fuse on a compressor it is only a matter of time before the fuse will open. I predict it will occur in your last match in the finals when you need the most. (Al's Fuse addendum to Championship Murphy's Law.)
The FETs in the Victors are rated for 40 amps each provided the junction temperature remains in a specified range. There are three in parallel for a total of 120 amps. This is a conservative rating so under the right conditions, they are easily capable of short currents well above that. They cannot reduce the junction temperature with the fans supplied so eventually a stalled CIM will damage them.
The FETs in the Jaguars and the Talons are different and have different ratings and operating parameters. In the Jaguar, the internal fault checking will shut down the output of the Jag for low input voltage, high internal temperature or currents above 100 amps that last longer than 0.2 sec. In general the internal fault checking is to try to prevent damage before it occurs. Mike can relate the parameters for the Talon. Soon we will all see for ourselves how these new devices act in the harsh FRC environment.
The breaker current rating is indeed tied to the current rating for the wire size. The wire table and breaker size are taken from the NEC for open frame, non-bundled DC wiring, used in intermittent duty (based on 2.5 minute, non-continuous operation). If smaller wire is used with a given breaker, overheating of the wire may result, causing melted insulation, the possibility of shorted conductors and therefore smoke or worse. While the rules are meant to prevent this activity, we still see it occur from time to time.