10 amp fuses - quick moan

[John Rumm]

Yup, although the effect is more pronounced in 20mm glass fused than in sand filled ceramic fuses like BS1362 style ones.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Unfused adaptor? The safe peak load on a 13 amps socket is strangely 13 amps. If you are stupid enough to find an unfused adaptor and exceed this Goodwin's law applies.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Don't most have an internal thermal fuse? Decently made ones do.

[SteveW]

No, not an unfused 13A adapter. There are Y and three outlet IEC adapters, with IEC inlet and outlet ... they are unfused. So you could have a single lead, with and IEC connector, feeding one of these adapters and that, in-turn, feeding two or three more. They might be used where someone wants a single 13A plug to feed multiple devices with IEC connectors. Now, while I use a socket strip with individual leads with 13A plugs for that purpose, I can see many people thinking that the IEC to IEC adapters seem very useful.

[Animal]

275w is 1.15A. Cold surge is around 9A. He's lucky it didn't catch fire.

[Animal]

13A is the rms rating. You can hugely exceed that without overheating if the load is brief, and many welders do. It gets stupid when the load can continue for long. 32A rings often deliver far more than 32A, but not for long enough to overheat.

[ARW]

That reminds me of secondary school.

Not quite the same effect but we used to make up plugs with a LN short and shove them into the sockets.

[John Walliker]

Also BC light bulbs with 16 gauge copper wire concealed in the base and soldered between the two contacts...

John

[Jack Harry Teesdale]

ISTR that at one time a 'ready reckoner' maxim for UK domestic fused plug tops was if the appliance rated wattage was greater than 720 watts it required a 13 amp fuse.(Providing the flex in use came as that supplied by the OEM)

If less than 720 a 3 amp fuse would normally suffice. (Except in the case of appliances with higher start up currents)

[Dave Plowman (News]

How to you plug an IEC Y-chord into a 13 amp socket?

Not quite sure what you're on about. Nothing wrong in using IEC for multiple outputs provided you don't exceed the total of the supply. This sort of thing is usually done with AV equipment where the total load is small. If anyone wants to run multiple electric kettles with it Goodwin's law still applies.

[SteveW]

The original feed may have a 13A fuse, the y-splitter then allows two (or more loads) running from that, a 13A fuse may not blow at all at 26A and the connector is only rated at 10A.

[John Rumm]

Which a 1A fuse would carry indefinitely.

If it was a big IR "heating" style lamp, then it could be as much as 15x nominal... (So you would need a minimum of a 5A fuse on that)

The inclusion of the word "aftermath" suggests something of that nature happened! :-)

[John Rumm]

That does not really make any sense...

Under fault conditions it will be significantly higher than 13A, and even at a point where the adiabatic heating of the cables is likely to result in cable damage, there will be too much thermal mass in the socket contacts to cause them any damage.

A socket is *far* more likely to be damaged by a prolonged slight overload than by a peak load.

[Owain Lastname]

For comparison a new 30 metre lead made up with 1.5mm arctic flex and a proper metalclad double socket was getting 0.3 ohms continuity on all wires.

CPC's artic flex smells strangely pepperminty.

Owain

[Scott]

Quite so. A 2 amp fuse must provide more protection than a 3 amp fuse or a 13 amp fuse. That is why I look at the appliance to see what the best fuse is likely to be.

Much the same as a double socket on a ring main then. Are they designed to cope with 32 amps (ie, two 3kW heaters simultaneously)?

[ARW]

If done correctly you tell the apprentices that the holes in the snips are there to aid the stripping of the brown/blue insulation from twin and earth cable.

[Animal]

no, 20A rated per double socket, 13A per outlet.

[Scott]

Sorry, my mistake. I meant to say 26 amps (2 x 13 amps) - both outlets fully loaded.

[Andrew]

I get 0.4 ohms just touching the two probess together on my digital multimeter and there doesn't seem to be any way of zeroing it. :-(

[Mark Carver]

South Africa use 16A unfused round pin plugs on radials. (Ever tried to plug in a 16A round pin in a hurry, it's really tricky coz the plug spins around on the earth pin).

I gather South Africa are migrating themselves to Schuko style sockets (presumably one reason not to be adopting BS1363 is because of the 16A radial thing ?)

Wall warts and chargers etc for products sold in SA have always had 'Euro' style pins, and it's quite common to see 16A Round Pin sockets alongside Schuko// sockets in industrial, and office buildings  (and in engineers' homes)