Home Wiring WTF
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@boomzilla Speaking of kids and electronics, UK plugs make those socket covers you can get to stop them electrocuting themselves not just useless, but dangerous. The earth can go in far enough to make the socket live, while leaving enough space to stick a fork in the live hole.
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@blakeyrat said in Home Wiring WTF:
Jesus!
They're like $0.50 at Home Depot. Was the plastic studded with emeralds?They're LED friendly dimmer switches, 3 of these, and 1 of these.
Apparently they ramp up the current more gradually, therefore making your LEDs less likely to blow up.
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@RaceProUK said in Home Wiring WTF:
faulty device trips the fuse instead of the circuit breaker
Because replacing a fuse is less effort than flipping a breaker back on?
Oh, you mean one individual breaker controlling an entire floor. I'm in a one bedroom apartment and I have like 18 breakers. A/C, Heat, dryer, range, water heater, garbage disposal, dishwasher, and loops for living, dining, kitchen, bed, bathroom. I'm sure I'm leaving some out.
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@JazzyJosh said in Home Wiring WTF:
Because replacing a fuse is less effort than flipping a breaker back on?
More so one faulty device doesn't trip the breaker that isolates an entire floor's plug sockets. Plus you have to remember that UK wiring standards have been around since before circuit breakers were even a thing, let alone common.
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@JazzyJosh I heard that the original reason wasn't to do with safety but because the standard came in just after WWII when copper was very rare, and that it uses less copper to have the fuse in the plug
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@RaceProUK Plus different appliances have fuses which trip at different currents. Everything behind a single circuit breaker trips at the same current.
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@CHUDbert you hacked Google! You crazy haxxxxor living outside the law!
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@loopback0 said in Home Wiring WTF:
You can get them without switches, but people like being able to switch plugs off individually.
Yeah, because simply unplugging the thing is too difficult for Brits. In other news:
@RaceProUK said in Home Wiring WTF:
a faulty device trips the fuse instead of the circuit breaker, for which there's typically one per floor.
And thus, completely negating their usefulness.
@RaceProUK said in Home Wiring WTF:
So you can isolate the plug from the mains supply before you disconnect it.
Are people really going to flip the switch off before they unplug the device? Not unless the plug is physically locked in until the switch is off.
@anonymous234 said in Home Wiring WTF:
My apartment has two light switches, one on each end of the corridor, that are wired AND instead of XOR
You can probably fix that. You might need to buy a couple of three-way switches. Or it's possible that they're already installed and just not wired correctly.
@sloosecannon said in Home Wiring WTF:
Surely that violates some kind of electrical code? Jeeeez
I'd guess it violates all of them.
@Greybeard said in Home Wiring WTF:
Not long after, I got a job in a different state and sold the house.
I'm surprised you could legally sell it with electrical wiring like that. Or did you just not mention it...
@Jaloopa said in Home Wiring WTF:
Somehow, it had been wired so it only worked if the light in the next room was on, but this didn't affect the other room's light so we never noticed. I'm not really sure how that worked.
They were in parallel. That's usually how things are wired. It's how they should be wired, because it guarantees the correct voltage to everything (barring spectacular screwups like @Greybeard's ). They took the hot wire for the new light off the wrong terminal of the first light's switch; otherwise it would've worked just fine.
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@anotherusername said in Home Wiring WTF:
Are people really going to flip the switch off before they unplug the device?
Doubt it. I never do, although most of mine don't even have switches on anyway.
There are probably people who think that having the socket turned on with nothing plugged in uses electricity or something.
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@anotherusername said in Home Wiring WTF:
And thus, completely negating their usefulness.
Just because the fuse trips instead of the breaker, doesn't make the breaker useless. There could be a short elsewhere, or some idiot could replace the fuse with a copper slug.
@anotherusername said in Home Wiring WTF:
Are people really going to flip the switch off before they unplug the device?
Of course they are; that's why the switch is there.
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@dkf said in Home Wiring WTF:
@blakeyrat Looking the price up was far more fun than grokking this shitty-ass API I'm supposed to be looking at today…
Fair enough.
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@RaceProUK said in Home Wiring WTF:
Just because the fuse trips instead of the breaker, doesn't make the breaker useless. There could be a short elsewhere, or some idiot could replace the fuse with a copper slug.
Their usefulness under normal circumstances, which is that you can just reset the breaker instead of replacing a fuse.
@RaceProUK said in Home Wiring WTF:
Of course they are; that's why the switch is there.
Switch being there != switch getting used, especially when unplugging the cord has the exact same result and they were going to unplug the cord anyway.
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@anotherusername said in Home Wiring WTF:
Switch being there != switch getting used, especially when unplugging the cord has the exact same result and they were going to unplug the cord anyway.
OK, so because some people don't use the switch, it's a stupid idea. Good to know logic and reason are alive and well.
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@RaceProUK No, it's a stupid idea because only stupid people shock themselves with properly-working electrical plugs and/or outlets, switch or no switch. And even in a country that's jam-packed with stupid people, there's hardly an epidemic of people electrocuting themselves because the bare metal prongs were live for a split second when they plugged in or unplugged one of their electrical gadgets.
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@anotherusername TIL that a safety device is stupid because only stupid people get hurt because there's no such thing as accidents
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TIL that a useful safety device is one that people don't actually have to use, requires extra effort to use, and gives no incentive whatsoever to use it other than "being safe".
If you want a real safety device, make it part of the fucking outlet so that people have to use it. Like build safety outlets that don't engage the current until the ground pin is seated all the way in. In other words, your switch that you're so excited about, built into the outlet itself: then it requires no extra effort to use it, and would require some real effort to defeat. Therefore, it's actually useful.
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@anotherusername I mean, I've electrocuted myself that way before, but it's not like it's gonna hurt you. Unless you hold your hand on it or something, you'll just get an unexpected shock...
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@anotherusername said in Home Wiring WTF:
In other words, your switch that you're so excited about, built into the outlet itself
Where the fuck do you think the switch is? On fucking Mars?
It's right next to the fucking socket you moron.
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@sloosecannon Yeah, and since the shock just travels through your fingers it's not going to hurt you in the least.
Although I can see how the countries with 220v mains would want to prevent you from doing that. Still, there are a ton of different safety features that can be built directly into the outlets that are more effective than putting a switch next to it.
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Fun story: for a while when I was a kid we had a socket that was hanging out of the wall a couple inches. It was set into a mirrored wall, so it was difficult to fix without damaging the mirror, so it stayed that way for a month or so until my dad got around to hiring an electrician to put it back.
We stupid kids were fascinated with it. Between myself, my brother, and my neighbor, we shocked ourselves maybe half a dozen times.
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@RaceProUK if you'd actually read what I wrote then you'd see that I meant an integral part of the socket's design, not a separate switch next to it.
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@anotherusername For fuck's sake, it is an integral part of the fucking design. It's part of the same fucking unit.
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@RaceProUK no it's fucking not. If you can simply ignore the fucking switch and bypass it and all the extra safety it would add, then it's not integral to the design.
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@anotherusername You can't bypass it: it's on the fucking live wire!
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@RaceProUK and it's always on, unless you deliberately turn it off.
So if it's ever off, you just turn it on and leave it that way, and you can effectively bypass it for the rest of time, ever.
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@anotherusername Oh, I guess I'm TR for wanting to isolate myself from the 230VAC supply that can kill.
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@RaceProUK that's what the fucking insulation on the plug is there for. You're not grasping the bare metal wires.
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@anotherusername So?
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@RaceProUK so don't grab the metal bits and you'll be fine.
Oh, and it'd kill if it went through your heart, probably, but across a few finger tips? Not likely. It'd just hurt enough to make you want to not grab the metal bits next time.
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@anotherusername said in Home Wiring WTF:
so don't grab the metal bits and you'll be fine.
Because plugs are always perfectly intact and always perfectly safe to use
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@RaceProUK said in Home Wiring WTF:
Because plugs are always perfectly intact and always perfectly safe to use
This is, I suspect, the point. In the event the plug is damaged or the appliance is some how damaged or malfunctioning you can kill the power without needing to touch it.
Do I actually care about the switches either way though? Not really.
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@RaceProUK oh come on. If it's not safe, then don't use it. It's time to replace it. If it's not safe to touch it without turning off a switch, then it's in much too poor a condition to have been plugged in to begin with. And in the rare case where that does happen...
@loopback0 said in Home Wiring WTF:
In the event the plug is damaged or the appliance is some how damaged or malfunctioning you can kill the power without needing to touch it.
...the circuit breaker can be shut off. Here, it doesn't even require turning off the power to your whole entire house (unless you can't figure out which circuit it's on).
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@RaceProUK said in Home Wiring WTF:
More so one faulty device doesn't trip the breaker that isolates an entire floor's plug sockets.
Do a lot of your devices have this sort of thing? Do you find that they trip a lot? Maybe you just need better appliances / devices?
Over here hair dryers have their own built in GFCI, and some things may have fuses or whatever as part of them, but the only thing I can think of with fuses in the plugs are Christmas lights.
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@anotherusername said in Home Wiring WTF:
...the circuit breaker can be shut off.
I don't necessarily agree with the logic but that's what I suspect it is. It's catering for the average moron, remember.
My house (in the UK) has 1 double socket with switches on it. The rest are all switch free.
The 'fusebox' has circuit breakers on 2 of the 6 different circuits - and rewireable fuses on the rest.
I'm still alive.Rewireable fuses, for anyone not aware:
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@boomzilla said in Home Wiring WTF:
Do a lot of your devices have this sort of thing? Do you find that they trip a lot?
Why would anyone use a broken device? Take your strawman to one of the more -ridden threads, please…
The circuit breaker usually monitors either the bulk current draw of the entire circuit or the amount of current going down the earthing connection, whereas the per-device fuse acts as a limiter on the amount of current that that device can draw. It's implementing a different safety policy. Just because I have a circuit that can have a room heater on it sometimes doesn't mean that I want my cellphone charger to draw that sort of current.
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Electrical nerd reporting for duty:
In places that use North American standards, outlets and light fixtures typically live on circuits that allow only 15A or 20A. Yes, multiple devices live on the same circuit generally, but it isn't an entire floor - maybe ten outlets or fixtures at the most - and that's dictated by electrical codes. If there's a short, it won't take much current at all for the breaker to pop. Ovens, clothes dryers, whole-house aircon and other heavy-draw shit that gets 240V phase-to-phase... well, that's another story... but they're hardwired or have a plug that's hard for anyone to get to without moving the appliance.
Oh, and to further solidify my electrical nerd cred: The breakers for whole-house aircon units and other heavy-draw motor loads are designed to pass much more than nominal current for a short amount of time after the load starts up. This is because these motors require inrush/startup currents that are significantly greater than they need after reaching full speed.
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@Tsaukpaetra i have FOUR ENTIRE PANELS of breakers. And they aren't the cutesy little girl panels, either.
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@boomzilla said in Home Wiring WTF:
hair dryers have their own built in GFCI
Ah... yeah, also a lot of outlets (especially in areas that are likely to be wet) have GFCI in the outlets themselves. So if you trip that, it doesn't trip the breaker at all.
@boomzilla said in Home Wiring WTF:
the only thing I can think of with fuses in the plugs are Christmas lights
...and that's mostly just because they're flimsy wires (not the stout cord that you get on most electrical appliances) plus they're being pulled and dragged and wound and unwound and they're a whole lot more likely to get nicks and scrapes and cracks that can cause shorts. So they have fuses. Some extension cords also have them, but those are generally a lot sturdier and less prone to that sort of physical damage.
@loopback0 said in Home Wiring WTF:
My house (in the UK) has 1 double socket with switches on it. The rest are all switch free.
When I see that, I'm more inclined to think it's for convenience. If there's a lamp always plugged in there, the switch turns it on and off. But having it right next to the outlet doesn't really make it very much more convenient. And @RaceProUK was trying to claim that it's a safety feature so that you don't electrocute yourself, which is ... especially if most outlets don't even have them.
@dkf said in Home Wiring WTF:
circuit breaker usually monitors either the bulk current draw of the entire circuit or the amount of current going down the earthing connection
Generally it's the former. The latter is called GFCI protection... some circuit breakers include it, but not all. And it doesn't monitor the amount of current going down the ground, it monitors and compares the amount of current going in (hot) and out (neutral). Simply monitoring the current on the ground lead wouldn't prevent you from getting electrocuted if the path through you to the ground didn't come back through that ground lead.
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@Weng Holy fuck, do you run a laundromat out of your
parents'basement or something?
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@dkf said in Home Wiring WTF:
Why would anyone use a broken device? Take your strawman to one of the more -ridden threads, please…
It's not a strawman but an actual question. I've never felt the need for a fuse on a plug (though it kind of makes sense in the Christmas light scenario), so I'm trying to understand why this is such a valuable thing to have.
@dkf said in Home Wiring WTF:
The circuit breaker usually monitors either the bulk current draw of the entire circuit or the amount of current going down the earthing connection, whereas the per-device fuse acts as a limiter on the amount of current that that device can draw. It's implementing a different safety policy. Just because I have a circuit that can have a room heater on it sometimes doesn't mean that I want my cellphone charger to draw that sort of current.
Is this another consequence of having higher voltage? Do these things actually trip a lot, thereby saving your device?
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@lolwhat actually, 5 panels. I forgot about the garage, which basically a machine shop/auto mechanic's shop.
The rest is just normal household outlets (I don't even have that many of those...) and appliance circuits.
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@anotherusername said in Home Wiring WTF:
If there's a lamp always plugged in there, the switch turns it on and off. But having it right next to the outlet doesn't really make it very much more convenient.
All my lamps have their own switches either inline with the wire or built into the lamp. Using the switch on the socket would be considerably less convenient.
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@boomzilla said in Home Wiring WTF:
Do these things actually trip a lot, thereby saving your device?
If the cellphone charger is drawing more current than a cellphone charger should draw, then it's already busted. A fuse or circuit breaker can't save it, only from melting and/or catching on fire.
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@loopback0 said in Home Wiring WTF:
All my lamps have their own switches either inline with the wire or built into the lamp. Using the switch on the socket would be considerably less convenient.
It's mostly just convenient when the switch is positioned more conveniently than the outlet is. E.g. a switch next to the doorway that turns on/off the outlet that powers a lamp in the corner of the room. That's actually pretty common. An outlet with a switch right next to it seems pretty pointless.
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@anotherusername said in Home Wiring WTF:
@boomzilla said in Home Wiring WTF:
Do these things actually trip a lot, thereby saving your device?
If the cellphone charger is drawing more current than a cellphone charger should draw, then it's already busted. A fuse or circuit breaker can't save it, only from melting and/or catching on fire.
Yeah, hence my original comment about getting better devices. I mean, yeah, sure, I can see how it's safer to have a fuse everywhere, but it just sounds like it's not gaining you much actual safety. Unless, again, the higher voltage makes this a real problem like it doesn't seem to be here.
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@boomzilla said in Home Wiring WTF:
Is this another consequence of having higher voltage? Do these things actually trip a lot, thereby saving your device?
It might be a consequence of the Health & Safety culture we seem to have here in the UK.
@anotherusername said in Home Wiring WTF:
If the cellphone charger is drawing more current than a cellphone charger should draw, then it's already busted.
None of my phone chargers have fuses in the plugs.
I assume there's some reasoning behind the plug for my lamp having a lower amperage fuse than the plug in my kettle - which are both lower than the amperage of one of my circuit breakers - but I'm not an electrical engineer so I don't know if that's actually the case.
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@loopback0 said in Home Wiring WTF:
It might be a consequence of the Health & Safety culture we seem to have here in the UK.
Jeez, this is like talking to a fox. I'm going to assume from now on that you guys don't get a bunch of blown plug fuses, since no one will answer directly.
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@boomzilla They're too busy dodging all the exploding gas stations.
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@boomzilla said in Home Wiring WTF:
I'm going to assume from now on that you guys don't get a bunch of blown plug fuses
Huh. I thought I'd answered that. My bad, must have just thought about it.
You assume correctly.