Fuses - again

Are you sure the charging station doesn't have some form of internal fuse? What happens if it is plugged into a 16 amp 'continental' supply? I think shaver adapters contain a 1 amp fuse.

I was responding to Mr Plowman. I'll adopt his definition.

Things with a transformer (that might catch fire) often have a thermal fuse in the windings. Non replaceable.

Relying on a plug fuse would be plain daft. All too easy to fit the wrong one.

A fuse on say a radio etc that can be replaced has the correct type printed beside it. No such thing on a plug.

Actually some plugs carry a sticker saying 'Fitted with 3 Amp fuse'.

Start by doing some reading. You'll soon find yourself in posession of a clue.

often yes. And often no.

That you think it daft makes zero difference to the fact that that is how it was done for a long time, and old appliances have not in most cases sprouted an extra fuse since construction.

No. It was reckoned that people could normally work out for themselves that a radio should be on a 2A plug, and a toaster on a 15A, which have since morphed into a 3A fuse & a 13A fuse in the square pin plug. Today we know that often people don't know this stuff.

NT

My toaster only needs a 7A fuse. I think 2A would suffice for a radio (though not a TV).

If you are only going to be running Office or similar and browsing the Web, yes. But most children and many adults game, which pushes machines much harder and those with a specific interest in computers and not just using them as a basic tool, often run many things at once.

When running multiple programs, more RAM means less paging to hard-disk.

There were 2 x SSDs to allow one to be dedicated to Windows, while the other had various different OSs installed at different times. The hard-disks were to provide larger amounts of temporary local storage and prior to the SSDs were the only storage on the machine. Until recently, the cost of SSDs was high enough to make using one without an additional hdd unaffordable for a main machine.

The Arduinos are a tiny part of the load and only happened to be there as my eldest son was experimenting with Arduinos and Ethernet.

That is pretty immaterial though - the big loads on any system are the processor, motherboard and graphics card - none of which were unusual and were all chosen on a price/performance basis, so as to give the best useful lifetime for a reasonable cost. Indeed, although the machine has been upgraded to a Ryzen 5 based one, the motherboard, CPU and RAM are now moved to another machine and will be used for some years yet - my middle son's machine was using an Intel Q6600 before that and had become painfully slow!

SteveW

But.. but ..there are normal, and fast blowing fuses. One should think before changing !

A sticker, yes. Not likely to survive long.

And long experience is why their aren't lots of values now used.

In the days of radial 5 and 15 amp circuits, the fuse was in the CU. And a

Early colour TVs could have a high inrush current enough to blow a 13 amp fuse, even when the quoted power consumption was well below 3kW. But not the anti-surge type fitted to the TV.

Interesting question: were the 15 amp sockets and 5 amp sockets on different circuits or mixed together?

but there are lots of values in use

do you know anything at all about this topic?

NT

In practice it wasn't unusual to find 5A sockets on a 15A fuse. Best practice wasn't followed to the degree it is today.

NT

And most people were blissfully unaware of things like current rating. Back in the 1950s we happily ran a 2Kw electric fire off a 5A 2 pin socket - it was the only socket in the room.

I think people were less concerned, as well as many didn't understand the 2/5/15A system. A lot of things were normal then that would have many people wet themselves with fear today. People ran 1 bar fires off BC sockets.

NT

I assume it does but we are talking about appliancies where the fuse can be replaced. AFAIK my toothbrush does NOT contain a fuse. The charging station should have a fuse as that is the ONLY section connected to the mains supply and in accordence with UK electrical safety must contain some sort of fuse, whether it is current or temperature driven, resetable or not I don't know, but it is most likely a non-servicable pat the a user shouldn't replace.

The statement was what appliances NEED a fuse and not whether they have one or not, there is a differnce there too.

I doubt it'll fit. The toothbrush just has a rechraging receptical that using induction for charging.

Some do others don't. My toothbrush was NOT supplied with one.

yes I know and those fuses aren't there to protect the cable unlike replaceable plug fuses are, that is the point. I've added 1 amp in-line fuses to our 12V AC Transformers as added protection.

Makes you wonder why the BS 1362 regulations allow it then doesn't it or are yuo saying they are wrong ?

Who's problem is that ? Are yuo saying 13 amp plugs should be banned because people can put the wroing fuse in them ?

Most plugs I've seen do have a rating embossed on them, the first 3 I've looked at here do. 2 Have 5 Amp embossed and another has 10 Amp embosed, all 3 have 5 amp fuses in them. But there;s nothing stoping an idiot cutting up a nail or putting in paper clip or anything else in the fuse holder.

No but most plugs & sockets have a current and voltage rating and that is how you decide on which should be the maximum sustanable rating. Those with enough inteligence know what these rating mean while it might need explaining to others.

It's also why there are differtn types of fuses. The most common fuses I buy are 1 amp quick blow glass bodied, which for one lab we normally get through about 30-50 and another skills lab we get through a similar amount each year.

The lowest current fuse I've bought is a 32ma, (a 20mm fuse) while the highest current fuse I have is a 500 amp. But strangley enough it won't fit in a

I also have some 3/8th inch fuses and some 1 1/4" as well as the now standard mains and 20mm types of which some are quick blow, semi delay, delay, and anti-surge. I try to keep a range from 50ma to 3.15 amp.