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Another gem from London Boaters facebook Page...

alan_fincher

By alan_fincher
in General Boating

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frangar Veteran II

frangar

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Posted

The London FB group makes for hilarious if not slightly scary reading.....someone was complaining this morning that a boat went past at 7.15am and woke her up!!.....and last week I rather lost it with a so called engineer who couldn't work out how to open a plug....or that they might be yellow or blue for a reason....yet apparently she was in charge of safety on oil rigs.......

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frangar Veteran II

frangar

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34 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

In EU plugs there is no requirement to wire up in any specific way.

 

Live / Neutral can be wired to either terminal.

Why do WE have to make such a 'meal' out of it @

Most if not all wiring in the EU uses non fused plugs....they have radial wiring with the fusing done at the board rather than the ring main system we have....hence in an overload situation the "polarity" in the plug is less important as the "fuse" is upstream.....thankfully we have a much better system!!

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BEngo Veteran II

BEngoDonate to Canal World

Posted
Posted
31 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

In EU plugs there is no requirement to wire up in any specific way.

 

Live / Neutral can be wired to either terminal.

Why do WE have to make such a 'meal' out of it @

We have long used 3 pin plugs, to ensure there is an earth or circuit protection conductor to the appliance, so that fixes the orientation.  Continental plugs provide for an earth either way up.

 

Then we invented the ring main to save copper. The ring main can easily be overloaded, without overloading any outlet.  The answer to that was fused plug tops.  Once you have fixed orientation and fused plug tops then a fuse in the (earthed) neutral wire is in chocolate teapot territory.  Fuse must be in the live.

N

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Chewbacka Veteran

Chewbacka

Posted
Posted (edited)
41 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

In EU plugs there is no requirement to wire up in any specific way.

 

Live / Neutral can be wired to either terminal.

Why do WE have to make such a 'meal' out of it @

Because old TV sets with valves would sometimes connect the chassis to neutral, you would not want to work on that wired up the wrong way round?

Edited by Chewbacka
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Ryeland Collaborator

RyelandDonate to Canal World

Posted
Posted
25 minutes ago, BEngo said:

We have long used 3 pin plugs, to ensure there is an earth or circuit protection conductor to the appliance, so that fixes the orientation.  Continental plugs provide for an earth either way up.

 

Then we invented the ring main to save copper. The ring main can easily be overloaded, without overloading any outlet.  The answer to that was fused plug tops.  Once you have fixed orientation and fused plug tops then a fuse in the (earthed) neutral wire is in chocolate teapot territory.  Fuse must be in the live.

N

The fuse in the plug is to protect the flexible cable attached to it.  The ring main cables, two each rated at roughly 20A, are protected by the single 30A or 32A fuse or circuit breaker in the consumer unit. 

 

Richard 

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alan_fincher Veteran II

alan_fincher

Posted
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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

In EU plugs there is no requirement to wire up in any specific way.

 

Live / Neutral can be wired to either terminal.

Why do WE have to make such a 'meal' out of it @

Well when I used to work on old valve based equipment that used a live chassis appraoch, I really did want to know that that chassis was connected to "Neutral" not "Live".

I'm not sure being sure about that was making a meal out of anything!

EDITED: To acknowledge that I can now see someone else has already said the same.

Edited by alan_fincher
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