Double/Triple outlet shaver sockets

[polygonum]

As we only have a "standard" house with an single upper floor, the thought of second upper floor never fleeted through my mind. But perfectly reasonable! :-)

[ARW]

It's NOT the schools. It's the PARENTS.

[Adam Funk]

+1

Those who advocate performance-related pay for teachers should carry the idea back a level.

Teachers are (for the most part --- there are a few exceptions) trained & qualified professionals trying to do the right thing. Parents vary widely in quality, down to those who are unable to use contraceptives correctly.

[Adam Funk]

In my neighbourhood, but not everywhere of course, early C.20 terraced houses with an original 2nd-floor room are fairly common. The top room has diagonal slopes between the front & back walls & the horizontal ceiling, & the stairs up to it were fairly obviously part of the original design of the house.

[meow2222]

Obviously its both. Since every generation of parents has a significant percentage of incompetents, any school with a clue would teach these things.

NT

[pmeczes1]

wet whilst handling electrical equipment, whereas in a bathroom you could be standing stark bollock naked wet all over in a pool of water in a cast i ron bath like a lightening conductor providing a perfect route to earth.

most shavers and toothbrushes will happily operate on either so you can pl ug two devices in.

YOU CANNOT operate two devices at the same time, because there is a mechani sm within the dual socket that prevents you from doing that by closing the unused port when you plug the first device in. Someone should produce a sim ple double socket that simply plugs into the shaver point and supplies powe r to two points simultaneously so that people like me can have their electr ic toothbrush, waterpik and/or shaver charging at the same time.

[GB]

This makes me wonder whether shaver sockets with an isolation transformer are needed at all? They pre-date ELCBs and RCDs.

I have installed two shaver sockets in our bathroom, and really we need a third. We get by because DW and I share an electric toothbrush (just changing the brush head, which we only started doing because the dental hygienist insisted).

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Which mostly negates the reason for using an isolating transformer. To get the same safety, you need one isolating transformer per outlet.

[Andy Burns]

What's the logic of that? Obviously without a transformer you only need to touch live terminal [and have a path to earth] to get a shock, with a single outlet on a transformer, touching one terminal won't give you a shock, only touching both terminals. So if there are two outlets, how are you more likely to touch both sides of the transformer output?

[polygonum]

Doesn't seem that difficult to imagine a lump that contains two isolating transformers, each feeding one socket, in one box. Or am I missing the significant issue?

[Tim Watts]

Double fault probably - Phase 1 goes to case in one appliance, Phase 2 goes to case in the other appliance. You are holding one appliance in each hand.

Very unlikely I know - but it's the main logic that I can see.

[Tim Watts]

It would not even need 2 transformers - just one with dual isolated secondaries. Or triple isolated secondaries.

I agree - it's about time such a beast came about as lots of people now have a couple of things on charge much of the time.

[GB]

Actually, one output that feeds different outlets at different times. Your toothbrush won't care if it's only charged 12 hours a day.

[GB]

Bugger, why did I post that? That's a really, really good idea, that would have been worth patenting if I hadn't published it here. :)

You could easily design circuitry that recognised when the user was operating the electric mouthwash and directed the output to that socket.

Then all that would be required is a single isolating transformer and a tiny circuit board.

[Brian Gaff]

and indeed a time machine as well, most probably. Brian

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You don't need an isolating transformer if you're not in any danger of touching one of the 'terminals'. It is used to make that fault less dangerous. If you have two appliances both with faults on the same iso tranny not too difficult to see how you could touch both terminals.

[GB]

Surely, the whole thing could be replaced with a suitably sensitive RCD?

[Tim Watts]

The RCD can be sensitive to 1mA - but it will not reduce the belt you get whilst it breaks the circuit (10-40mS in practice).

This is normally OK with dry contact, but if you are soaking wet, you're going to get a much heftier current through you for those 10-40mS which may prove fatal in a larger number of cases.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I thought we had decided not to talk about the European Union!

[Adam Funk]

Is this the reason that isolating transformers (which are relatively old technology) are still required for bathroom shaver sockets, even if they are RCD-protected? (I'd been meaning to ask for a while.)