My wife has just purchased a 3KW kiln and it comes with a 13A plug. I am not too happy about connecting it via the plug.
Should I put in a 20A switch? If so, should I also put this on a spur with
2.5mm2 back to the box as the small ring main is 16A not 32A? Because it is a kiln do I need some overload protection? This is all in a small outbuildingFinally, this is going into outbuilding with water etc etc so what is the best way of including RCD?
Thanks
why? what is your kettle rated at? I have a 3Kw Kettle,and your iron is probably about 2Kw. Oh, and my electric rad, that's a 3Kw one and used to get left on for hours.
Ok, so maybe I am being over cautious. Kilns are famous for having new electric elements and these can vary so this might be a 3.3Kw kiln...would that change anything?
If not then I am happy with a good quality 13A plug.
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client:
More to the point is that, being a kiln that is on for hours at a time, there is more likelihood than with a kettle of heat running back up the cable and the plug getting hot - not something that BS1363 plugs are noted for sustaining!
Get yourself a BS4343 blue 3-pin outlet and plug. It is rated 16A, has round pins which generally give a better contact, and it means that only the kiln will be plugged into it. If you want to run a spur then you should really use 4mm cable, even though technically 2.5mm is rated.
Three Kilowatts is ok on a standard 13amp plugtop but, like anything else of that rating on that type of plugtop, it'll get a bit warm when used for hours. So don't come back in here saying that the plug is hot and everyone told you it would be OK, because it will make the plugtop warm when used for long periods of firing your pots.
It is pretty close to the limit for a 13A plug but they are designed to carry 3kW of power (that is why they picked 13 amps) so there should be no problem.
If the manufacturer supplies the equipment with a 13 amp plug and you chop it off and hard wire the thing via a higher rated fuse or MCB then that fuse/MCB may not trip in the event of a fault.
If you want to include RCD protection then you could install a socket outlet with RCD built in. If there is a good chance that the 16A ring main will be overloaded then to avoid nuisance tripping you should install this socket on a radial circuit back to the consumer unit, using at least 2.5mm cable and fused at 16 amps.
HTH
If there is a problem it will be obvious by the plug/socket getting very hot.
The *whole* 13A plug will get hot, not just it's top. The plug's pins and fuse carrier are far more likely to be affected.
LOL !!!!! Yeaah !! You could be right. :-0
BigWall> >
Sorry !!!! But I had to read this again. LOLLLLLL !!!!!
I might be wrong but don't 16A plug lack fuses - so what protects the cable to the kiln? 16A MCB on a dedicated circuit should be OK for the flex but not if the 16A socket is wired to a ring circuit or 20A radial.
If the manufacturers supply witha 13A socket then they have taken responsibility that such an arrangement is adequate, the plug and flex will get hot but not dangerously so.
tops, rather than plugs and sockets. :-)
As a kiln is not portable, try wireing it into a fused spur unit with a 13A fuse in it. Get one from one of the better manufacturers such as MK. Run a
2.5mm or 4mm radial to the consumer unit and fit a 16 or 20 amp protective device. I would also recomend fitting something like rswww.com part number 331-6493 between the fused spur unit and the consumerunit but close to the kiln. This would let you padlock the kiln off![..]
Also look for one with an RCD built in, a lot easier to fit, you just need to run a 16A radial to the RCD\socket.
Quite right, should be on a 16A radial in this instance.
[..]
It is possible that the kiln is only sucking 3kW for short periods of time, rather than all the time. In which case the 13A plug ought to do the business. That's the way a regular oven works.
I'm sure the supplier/manufacturer must be happy with the 13A plug because if they aren't then they would be laying themselves open for being sued if the arrangement catches fire etc.
PoP
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I have had several plugs burn out eventually at these sorts of currents.
If its never going to be unplugged, I would defintely put in a switched and fused spur for it.
Why bother with a potentially unreliable plug and socket when you don't need it?
EN 60309 connectors (BS4343) are intended to be used on radial circuits where the protection is at the breaker, although you could put multiple ones on a single breaker if diversity can be shown.
.andy
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I would suggest the following:
- Put in a proper power feed to a consumer unit in the outbuilding using SWA cable of appropriate rating. For example, you might want a total of 32A for everything in the outbuilding. You would protect the SWA cable and everything downstream with a 32A MCB in the main house consumer unit or install a separate MCB switch if preferred.
- If the building is some way from the house, the outbuilding should be treated as a TT system of its own and an earth rod and 100mA time delay RCD used in that consumer unit. For short distances from the house you can export the house earth, but it is not a preferred approach.
- In the consumer unit of the outbuilding, put in at least one 6A breaker for the lights. You don't want them going off if there is an RCD trip so they/it should be upstream of any RCD.
- For other power in the outbuilding, you should have RCD protection. Either you can create a split load CU where the breakers between the main switch and the RCD are not protected and those downstream are; or you can use individual RCBOs (RCD + MCB together basically).
- For general power, you could create a ring circuit protected at up to 32A and wired in 2.5mm^2 cable or a radial circuit with daisy chained sockets in the same size cable protected with a 16A breaker.
- For the kiln, an EN 60309 16A blue industrial connector would be the best choice. This should be wired specifically to its own RCD protected or RCBO breaker in the outbuilding CU.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
What actually happens is they take a great deal of power for quite some time to bring them up to temperaure, as teh thermal mass is considerable.
THEN they go into cycle mode.
They after all, only ovens to cook ceramic in.
I still think that apart from wiring a dedicated spur, its easiest top patch in a 13A fused switched fused spur off a local ring main.
I really would not consider a 13A plug to be a suitable thing except for occasional use.
It won't catch fire. The socket will. Leastways thats been my experience of failure modes of this kind off stuff. Eventually the 13A plug/socket gets corroded, and slightly high resistance, arcing takes place, more corrosion, and heat, the plastic starts to go brittle and the thing falls apart in a shower of sparks.
You then need to replace both plug and socket. Its not unsafe, just 'accelerated ageing' really.
Why take the risk? SFS is a neat and simple way to do this. You leminate the plug and socket contact, have a dedicated bitof wire, and a switch (and proably a neon) as well as a fuse. Neat, to the point, withing regs, and less likely to fail. AND no incentive to unplug repeatedly to use socker for vacuum cleanre to sweep up the shattered vase that just fell out of the kiln..
They're actual term is socket end, but most call them socket outlets.
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