English plug fuses - Page 3

Hi Bimblebob 

Where a fuse is installed in the Neutral conductor of a single phase supply system, it does 'in fact provide equal protection to a fuse installed in the Live 'phase' conductor., however it contains the Inherent  risk of leaving a piece of equipment 'live' even though it may appear 'dead  under a fault condition. This is due to the  'live conductor remaining energised giving a potential 230 volt to earth shock risk and potential fire risk.

The main function of a fuse fitted in a 13A plug attached to the flexible  supply cable of most modern equipment is to protect the cable from possible short circuit faults resultant from accidental mechanical damage to the said cable.

The 13A plug was introduced post ww2 when the Ring circuit was introduced to save costs on power socket installations .

In systems that do not utilize fused plugs the protective device at the consumer unit ( fusebox) , I.e fuse or circuit breaker has to be able to not only protect the fixed wiring within the property, but also it has to be able to provide protection to any flexible cables supplying fixed equipment and portable appliances .

Modern consumer units in counties like Spain, with unpolarized socket outlets now provide much improved protection against overload and short circuit faults, via the inclusion of double pole protection of all outgoing circuits, however caution needs to be exercised when considering plugging in appliances with small rated flexible leads, into circuits supplied by anything larger than 10 Amp circuit breakers back at the consumer unit.

LeckyLes 

Really appreciate the info.

Cheers.

I believe you can order a decent quantity of mixed fuses for under €5 on Amazon .

Got to get round to doing it myself sometime .

Or get someone to bring you some over if possible 

All UK fuses are readily available on www.amazon.es, and very cheap too:)

Having a ready stock of UK plug top fuses in Spain wont help much if you get Electrocuted due to it being Electrically incompatable with the design of Spanish Electrical wiring systems 

See my earlier post ! 

LeckyLes 

Absolutely!!

I buy good quality low profile Spanish plugs from Leroy, for a couple of euros each and replace the UK plugs wherever I can*. All that is needed at a minimum is a knife and a small screwdriver. This has the added advantage of reducing the space which a UK plug plus travel adapter occupies and I no longer have to worry about whether I’ve got the adapter the right way round (or about the current carrying capacity of the adapter, which is often less than required and not usually for continuous use, either!).

*The only time this is not feasible is where I have UK mains adapters which are directly incorporated into a UK 3-pin plug, for e.g. charging the vacuum cleaner etc. However, such items tend to draw very low current, so the risk of continuously using a travel adapter is significantly lower.

Hi Lecky Les, one thing and for me the most important thing you didn’t mention was the use of RCD (Residual Current Device), the trip switch to non Sparkies. The RCD is rated to trip at 30 milliamperes of fault current in a circuit. 30 ma will not kill you, a fault current of 50 milliamperes will put your heart into Fibrillation and Can kill you.

Thus all installations Must have an RCD fitted to give protection to life. They must trip under 40 milliseconds. Also I think its important that people test the trip function of the RCD regularly. this does not test the electrical trip function but does test the mechanical part of the trip.

Ian

Hi Woodhai, you are quite correct in your description of the function of a Residual Current Device ( RCD), within an Electrical Installation .

In addition to your description of the benefits of such a device you did not mention its function, in certain installations, as as a means of protection against fire .

The topic under discussion was one of Plug top fuses and their protection against overload and short circuit protection,  and how the Spanish system does not cater for the application of such seperate fault protection for each individual appliance.. whereas the RCD offers protection against only earth fault current, hence its non relevance to this topic 

LeckyLes 

Your reply seems a bit pedantic les I was only trying to educate people of the importance of an RCD whether its relevant to the subject or not.

Not at all Woohdai, I did start off my reply by agreeing with you on your description of the functions and merits of RCD useage , but was keen to highlight the hazard of retaining 13 amp plug tops in the Spanish System and was eager to warn others that an RCD does not remove the inherent danger of reversed polarity from unpolarised Spanish socket outlets. 

LeckyLes