> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan B. Pearce [SMTP:A.B.Pearce@RL.AC.UK]
> Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2002 2:23 PM
> To:   PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject:      Re: [EE]: Newbie Q. re: electrical outlet and SSR
>
> >Australia for a couple of years and being scared to
> >death that there were no fuses and hardly and sockets
> >actually had grounds on them
>
> Well the Australian ones certainly have a ground pin, because they use the
> same ones NZ uses (I'm a Kiwi), and the fuses are on the fuse board, wired
> out to the room sockets in a star configuration.
>
> The English wiring system is to run a ring main around all the sockets
> with
> a single large circuit breaker or fuse, which has the horrible effect that
> a
> faulty appliance can still take out the whole ring main instead of just
> the
> faulty appliance. Hope your fridge or freezer is not on the same circuit
> when the TV set blows the fuse.
>
But a TV would have about a 5 Amp fuse in the plug, so it's likely to blow
somewhat faster than the 30 Amp ring main fuse in the distriubution panel.

Having seen and used US plugs, they seem amazingly flimsy, especialy as they
presumably have to pass twice the current that the UK ones do?  That said,
besides the size of UK plugs, there is another draw back, as anyone who has
accidently stepped on one (prongs up!) with bare feet will testify!  And of
course the fact that on certain styles, virtualy no-one remebers that you
have to fit the cover onto the flex before screwing the conductors in.
That's when the knife/sidecutters usualy come in play...

Mike

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