Assumptions about live/neutral

Normally yes, unless someone has connected them the wrong way round. Why do you need to know? Don

That's a reasonable assumption - otherwise the thing could still be live with a blown fuse.

That's a sane assumption. Only once did I see fusing in the earth connection, in a Hacker gramophone. It was earthed via a thin strip of ali foil, which acts as a fuse.

NT

Do check that the wire you *think* is live in the mains lead, really is connected to the live pin in the plug.

There are some strange people that think wiring colours are more of a rough guide than a rule.

Some appliances are wired the wrong way round, yesterday I had to reverse the blue and brown wires in the plug for a cheap handlamp that I was fixing, which was found to have it's internal SP switch and the centre of the ES lampholder connected to the blue wire...

Since when did two wrongs make a right? Shouldn't you have corrected the problem in the *appliance*?

Yesterday afternoon when Owen was denied that penalty.

Swapping in the plug would ok if you also sleeved the wires to indicate their actual usage IMHO

Indeed. Otherwise someone is subsequently likely to see that they are 'wrong' and swap them back again!

lead from an old Roland drum machine

king

Think about it :-)

MBQ

In message , D.M. Procida writes

It's a fair bet. On the other hand I did once have an Indesit washing machine where the neutral was switched, not the live - very dangerous.

I replaced a socket in a house where L and N were transposed in the CU, so all the fuses were on N. I found out the spectacular way - and damaged a good screwdriver.

Some old radio circuits used to show a fuse in both sides of the supply to a transformer, for some reason. And when I found an old metal mains fusebox in which all the circuits were fused on both the live side and the neutral side, I asked an even older-timer than myself and was told that had once been common practice.

I think in those days emphasis was on protecting the equipment, not the people.

I once refused to believe my wife (now ex-wife, but not for that reason) when she claimed to have got a shock from the refrigerator in our rented apartment. Later I discovered that, only when the motor was running, the metal body of the refrigerator had 110 volts on it. (This was in Toronto).

No earth (only a two pin socket for the fridge), and a faulty motor.

The internal connections were soldered, I didn't have time to fix them as I needed the handlamp to do another job, anyway I'm going to buy a decent one, as the reason for the first one needing fixing was that the neon pilot light in the switch had caused the fuse to blow.

Used for DC mains, which could have both sides floating, but DP fusing was required by regulations until after WW2, when SP fusing was allowed for AC mains, providing the neutral was permanently earthed at the substation.

ldered the damaged mains lead from an old Roland drum machine

I've a modern oven in which the neutral is switched - an AEG, not one of the cheap and crappy manufacturers. Some time back it started tripping the RCD when switched from OFF to the 1st position which is OVEN LIGHT. Ergo I dismantled the oven light, isolated it totally as I couldn't find anything obvious and powered the oven back on - still tripped.

The dismantlement became somewhat more serious and the meter use to identify cabling more prolonged, resulting in finding that switching to position 1 of the selector switch put the neutral onto the fan motor and that was when the trip happened. I suppose that doesn't quite qualify in that the fan wasn't actually powered on by this, but it didn't half cause some confusion.

Rob

Interesting info. And of course you might not know, for sure, if the neutral was in fact permanently earthed, and would therefore fuse both sides to be sure you complied with the regs.

It probably had become dogma that you should do that, long after it had in fact become a just-possibly dangerous thing to do. Especially if you weren't expecting it.