British plugs with built-in surge arrestors. (With schematic.)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- I got these just to find out how they had implemented the surge protection in such a small space. It's an odd but also clever design that is based on existing electrical parts.
I'd guess that these would be useful in a situation where there was a risk people might unplug a typical surge protection adapter. If it's on a flex then it's less likely to get removed. But it's also less likely to get changed if it fails over time.
These units came from CPC (part of element 14) in the UK. I'd guess similar devices exist for other styles of plugs too.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
www.bigclive.co...
This also keeps the channel independent of TH-cam's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
![[Full Episode] The Restaurant War Thailand ศึกพ่อค้าซ่าแม่ค้าแซ่บ Episode 2 | 29 ก.ย. 67](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/r3lfLNH6Ke4/mqdefault.jpg)
D is disk type (size in mm) K is Tolerance +-10%
Thanks!
Ditto! Thank you very much!
D for Dont need no fuse ;-)
Go on swap the tops so you have two tone plugs :-D
That could look quite nice.
These seem like they are pretty good as surge protectors go, apart from their lifetime being fairly short if your lines are noisy. Most cheap surge strips I see in the States only bridge LN (no LG or GN), and many lack any kind of indicator of whether they are still actually providing protection. That this one also seems well-built and cleverly engineered is a bonus.
I like the technical term you use 🤔. It may go boing 😉...
- but that's ok ;-)
Big Clive must be a Scot. The English would say "fatang". :-)
These are by PMS, Hong Kong company called PMS Ming Kee. They've been making plugs in the UK since at least the mid 80s but the company is 40 years old. You used to find them in market stalls but they've proven to be good quality and widely available under own brands such as CPC, Morrisons etc and found on many small appliances. The design hasn't changed since the 80s and they're generally one of the better plugs on the market (although they’re using cheaper plastics as time goes on).
Before PMS started doing this surge version in the 2000s, WG/Volex (in the 80s/90s) made a UK made surge protected plug like this.
I love how simple it is, and the way it uses off-the-shelf standardised parts, like the spring loaded pins
Thanks for the video Clive :)
Clive didn’t checkout the “D”! Well, there’s a first time for everything, rofl
So instead of having to rewire your plugs, you could just replace the back of the plug. Nice.
Franko Walker yea it is useful
picture quality is fine, but zoomed in a bit blurry. softer than it should be
I remember back in the early days of PCs, someone wrote a column about adding MOVs to power strips to add surge protection. Within a month, most U.S. Radio Shack stores were completely out of MOVs. Soldering in 3 MOVs was simple, easy and effective, but I don't recall anything about adding thermal fuses. Unlike now, surge protected power strips would cost upwards of $50-$75, and were difficult to find because they were 'commercial' products.
I must be missing something. The standard plug base connects the cable of your device directly to the outlet through the fuse. How does the additional PCB bit do any protecting if it can't actually break any connection?
It doesn't break the connection, it just sits in parallel with the load and shunts any excess supply voltage to earth.
Dave Pusey, Ah ok. Thanks for explaining.
@@davepusey Thanks. I feel like, unusually for Clive, the video was rather lacking in explanation for how it actually works.
@@davepusey Since there is a thermal fuse in series with the MOV, it would probably blow the thermal fuse and protect the MOV during a surge. The connected device will still be connected to the outlet without any protection.
I've had one of those on my computer power lead for many years, just realised I've never checked it see if the MOVs are still OK. It doesn't have the neon so no obvious outward indicator it's still working.
edit: had a quick look, it's a similar design but the components are potted.
For some reason the picture is sharp on the right side but unfocused elsewhere. It's quite apparent with the notebook in view.
This is a common anomaly on phone cameras
I was expecting ".. it might go boingg --- but that's ok"
"odd but clever" describes CPC pretty well
I do like surge protectors that don’t shut off when they stop protecting. I have never met a non electrical person that pays any attention to the light going out. But the beauty of this design was that they didn’t have to interfere with the existing plug design. I wonder if they could add a buzzer when it stops protecting. This would also help when the plug is out of site behind a piece of furniture.
I'd concur with that. I wonder how many surge protectors in use are actually providing protection any more. I seen a fair few that aren't. People just tend to assume the wouldn't work at all if that was the case.
I have found the surge protectors that offer an attached device warranty are the ones that will shut off when they stop protecting. I’m constantly checking family and friends computers to verify they’re plugged in to a proper surge protector. Since I’m going to be the one that has to replace their power supply. They are always so confused that I tell them their surge protector did not protect them when they were plugged into one that didn’t shut off.
There are actually MOV's with series thermal fuses integrated into a single package. Littlefuse makes them, makes layout and design or adding protection to an existing circuit very simple.
and this is why I read the comments, knowledge is power.
Always love when Big Clive is surprised by a tear-down. "That's quite cleaver." Such a simple video but yet still entertaining. I'm getting more and more jealous from not having regular 240 volt here in the US.
Clive i was thinking that why they are not using 10d371k mov.voltage will not go above 370v.
Because with 10% tolerance a non-trivial number will conduct every cycle, and even those which don't will have short lives.
Plus, the greater energy dissipated will cause more heating of the MOV and shorten their lives even further.
6:55 And in other countries, the plugs aren’t even polarised.
I was told once upon a time that Norway and Peru are the only countries in the world that has no live/neutral, but both phases have about 130(?) Volts to ground..
@@andersfrihagen3656 www2.theiet.org/forums/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=205&threadid=88103 suggests that such systems are also seen in other parts of Europe and that Norway also uses the normal 230/400 system. The phase-phase voltage is sqrt(3) times the phase to neutral voltage, so with a 230V phase-phase voltage you would have about 133 volts phase to neutral.
Got a 33D00061 unit, which is rated for 480VAC. 470VAC will not clamp most small pulses, but will do big ones. you only need 2 thermal fuses, as they only need to disconnect 2 out of the 3 wires at most for the unit to not work.
I have made many DIY versions, using a single MOV, 275V, inside a standard 16A plugtop, as they do work well to clamp spikes. The MOV units tend to fail short circuit and trip the breaker, but here the breaker is 20A, not a 32A one used in the UK, where you instead use fuses in the plug instead. Not sure which system is safer overall, both have pros and cons.
I like these, use one on battery charger/transformer in caravan, very useful when using a generator.
Looks like someone was thinking when designing the plugs.
Yep and say so.
Interesting, so not an in-line protective device, but more like a voltage-detecting shunt?
Yes. Just shunts transient spikes.
@@bigclivedotcom Would they protect against a nearby lightening strike? Is so I will buy a few for my computers etc.
Excellent video, thanks Clive.
@@gromett Are you asking if the computers will be fine after the house has been vaporised by a lightning strike ?
I suspect the first thing you should do is assess the likelihood of a strike.
This could be an interesting consideration for when I next trim the trees.
@@millomweb
he did say nearby strike :-)
but it would be impressive if the house was blown to bits and the computer was standing there good as new :-)
@@gromett Power line surge suppressors alone won't save you, you need proper grounding so surges don't travel through alternate paths such as AC->PC->HDMI->TV->STB->coax. For higher value equipment, I'd rather have a better-rounded surge suppressor with in-line chokes (ex.: Tripp-Lite isobar) to soften transients and give its multiple 20Dxxx MOVs a better fighting chance against whatever is left.
It occurs to me that if you just plugged one of these into the sockets at each end of a ring main, then it should provide reasonable protection for everything else plugged into that ring. There's no need to actually wire them into any appliances unless you're short of sockets.
Remind me where the end of a ring circuit is again?
@@Monkeh616 end of the house and start of the house, I guess having one plugged into each room would work as well, the more you have more likely they adsorbed the spike over each spd
but generally they more effective if they are before the device that is been supplied like an extension cable with all your electronics plugged into that (or in the consumer unit as is starting to happen )
Belkin with there surge master line socket and 4-8 way extension leads having doing it for a very long time
@@Monkeh616 The two ends of a ring main are the first socket and the last socket going clockwise or anticlockwise in the southern hemisphere.
@@petehiggins33 First socket from where? It's a ring. And yes, I appreciate you mean the first one along the run from the CU. These really only provide very, very basic protection, though.
@@Monkeh616 Clearly it would be better to fit a proper surge protection device like this tinyurl.com/r8a2vpf in the consumer unit but they are expensive and should only be fitted by an 'electrician'. But if you were thinking of using these relative cheapies to protect a couple of appliances then my suggestion would give the same level of protection to all the sockets on the ring for the same cost. You need to use two because the transient will travel in both directions around the ring and the suppressors will only protect sockets downstream of the wiring.
In one of his video, Photonicinduction stated that English electrical equipment are among the best in the world, maybe he was right..
The Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish stuff is equally as good.
@@speedbird073 The Manx stuff is OK, too.
If the US upgraded to an accident reporting protocol that produced and published statistics comparable with British statistics, we could easily tell just how much better.
Note that the current US administration is actually working to reduce the gathering and timely publishing of accident statistics.
@@speedbird073 Cornish and Isle of Dogs too
@@speedbird073 I'm in North wales, electricity hasn't reached us yet. Got a few barrels of whale oil to use first.
I like the image the camera you used on this video has given. It's a crisp clear focus, but a slightly warmer picture, yet the white is still a nice, clear white.
Sound is good too.
The US guys may not be interested, only for Britain and Hong Kong, yes even hand back to China we still use BT standard for electric, phone connector did changed to RJ11 though.
There used to be fridge power loss alarm plugs that used a similar construction.
British plugs are just soooo huge. Glad Canada uses the small 120V plugs! :-)
Yes, so easy to grab the live conductors as well. No wonder the standard method to remove is to pull out by the cord, because the plug is small, there is no sleeved end and of course the sockets have no switches to disconnect them either.
@@SeanBZA - Yet as a Canadian I never hear about anyone touching the live connector. They aren't hard to pull out but true that some people are lazy and grab the cord. They take the abuse. 120V is great for the vast majority of items and we have 208 and 240V for the big stuff. We do have switched sockets but they are usually just for a lamp outlet on the other side of the room. Don't need it otherwise.
you could just take an existing plug and swap the back rather then rewiring the entire plug pretty cool
There will be younger viewers out there who didn't even realise that it was possible to fit your own plug top to an appliance.
Efficiently made and seems to be of good quality. I have not seen a similar product in the US. Here I have only seen large MOVs on poser distribution strips and backup power supplies. Usually the whole unit is thrown out when someone notices the neon has gone out. That's a lie. Nobody ever checks the neon.
I do check and replace MOVs. I have heard MOVs wear down over time, with every tiny overvoltage hit eroding the internal bits a little. Don't know if that's true.
They do fail progressively over time with each transient absorbed, just as you mentioned.
@@bigclivedotcom Can they cause ghost RCD trips when they age then?
@@uK8cvPAq They can, although usually they're terrifyingly hot before that occurs, which is where the thermal fuses come in.
Thanks Clive, great clear explanation as usual. Nice that you will look at some of the more overlooked items that we have around the house.
I wanna be. I wanna be. I wanna be like big clive
Re: Audio / Video equipment. Sometimes older is better. and this video is an example that shows that to be true.
Onwards towards 1 million subscribers!
That's a great improvement over the standard plugs! I'd love to see this in US plugs too.
SUR(GE)! YOU’RE UNDER ARREST!
Currently. I'll break free, someday!
You can't resist me forever.
Watt’s the charge? 😁
A short, 9 minute video?! Clive, are you OK? Should we send help? Blink twice if you cannot speak.
Would you prefer a short video or a dead short video from Clive ?
My concern with this design is, is the live going into the surge protector is after the fuse, not before. So if it starts dumping power, is that going to trip the fuse in the plug, preventing the surge protector from doing what it should do? Shouldn't it actually be without a fuse, and without the possibility of wiring to an appliance?
Those are some FAT Pogo Pins.
I absolutely love the mic in this camera! So soft and bass heavy 😍
It's just the built-in mic on the iPad.
Rudofaux nope
Picture quality seems much worse than usual, very soft/blurred. Zoomed is even worse still.
If you have some spare tops, you can replace them when they get damaged.
Also; I thought they often used LEDs because if you get a spike big enough to destroy the LED, then there is a good chance that the protection has failed?
You may have a point there but it's probably because the car me and stuff but I don't know anyone that guy comments on that?
Hi Clive,
Mov's break down over time and end up leaking a current to the neutral. I've always sold an low currant circuit breaker to be installed in series, mainly as a cost saving so the surge protector doesn't waste power. Maybe that is why the thermal fuses are there.
10D = 10mm Diameter, 471 + 470v nominal, K = 10%
Would be even neater if they'd not used bayonet socket contacts - as it is them that's driving the height of the plug top.
Sound good. Image seems to have a gradient from left to right. Right side being more in focus. Colour a tad too rich. Great VDO as always.
I'm quite happy with the colour.
Does anyone know whey it uses a neon indicator as opposed to an LED? I'd suppose the LED is cheaper and lasts just as long? CMIW.
Neon indicator doesnt require stepping down the voltage, just throw a small resistor in. makes it cheaper for simple things that aren't using a transformer or voltage dropper of some kind to begin with.
@@SenorBolsa Thank you for the explanation 🙂👍
Springy.... WE ALL WANT TO SEE IT GO *BOING* ACROSS THE BENCH! At least 300 little pieces for Clive to squeeze back into a 5mm square box (only joking).
Is there any way of demonstrating or showing them actually working? Maybe one for John Ward?
Clive has the insulation tester which goes to 1kV or more if i'm right.
it should clamp down to around 270V then.
@@PsiQ Being 470V MOVs, I'd go with closer to, uh, 470V.
@@Monkeh616 um, aah, was thinking of the ones i've seen lately which were rated at 275V/1mA i think
Was it 230V +/- 10% for allowed tolerance ?
(Wouldnt work for 230 x 1.4 peak hmmm )
@@PsiQ Something rated at 275V was probably rated for AC - which makes it a 390V part.
Those brass springy bits are popularly known as "pogo pins".
but brass springy bits sounds way better
It's not what they call them in the railway industry. There, they call them.....
....BUFFERS !
@@millomweb Thanks, I LOL'd :-)
@@theskett It's true ! I should have gone to bed an hour ago :)
Pretty neat design, especially the way it utilises a standard plug... :)
Haven't seen one of those plugs since 2001 👍
one reason for incorrectly wired sockets is the fact that different makers put the connections were they like so if someone goes to b+q or some such and gets nice new shiny sockets , switches off the power and removes old socket and fits new socket they will just fit the wires same as old socket which may have L + N opposite way round , when they plug something in to test it works , job done :-)
I surged when i viewed..........Review of DANGEROUS Japanese Fanny Flambeaux doll
Careful Clive, you picked the 'white one'. You're bound to be branded as 'Pluggist'...:)
WB try painting your work bench grey.
I was going to suggest that as well. I am guessing he is using a white card and manual white balance which would work as well.
Put some aircon in a shop where the incoming live and neutral were reversed! Customer wasn't bothered, suspect they'd bypassed the meter...
So was the meter running backwards ? ;)
I'll do you one better. My boss sent me to one of his rental properties to take a look at why the circuit breaker for the barn out behind the house kept blowing. He had just had some work done there by a "professional electrician." Now, for purposes of understanding the problem, I'll explain a bit about American electrical systems. Most devices use 120 volts, and larger devices such as air conditioners, ovens, etc. use 240 volts. The transformer that supplies the property has a 240 volt secondary that is center tapped, with the center tap being referenced to ground (Earth) and serving as the neutral on 120v circuits. The two live wires go in to the circuit breaker panel (consumer unit) and the bus bars alternate so that every other slot uses one live wire and the others use the other one. For a 240v circuit, you have a double pole circuit breaker with one pole on each of the live wires, so that they have a potential of 240v between each other. When you run electricity to an outbuilding, you'll run 4 wires: live 1, live 2, neutral, and ground (Earth) Those will go to a sub-panel with circuit breakers for the outbuilding, and a large, double pole main breaker supplying that will be in the main breaker box in the house. Back to the story. The "professional electrician" that had done the work previously had installed a new subpanel in the barn. In the process, he had connected one live to one live busbar, as you're supposed to, the other live to the neutral bar, and the neutral to the other live bar. Being a subpanel, the neutral and ground aren't bonded together- that's only done at the service entrance, otherwise you can wind up with the ground carrying current. So the installation didn't just short out as soon as power was connected. The result was that half of the outlets and lighting was wired with reverse polarity, and the other half had 240v instead of 120v. Naturally, the things that were plugged in to those outlets didn't like it. So someone else was sent out to see what was going on. Upon discovering that half the outlets had 240 volts, did he go and look at the panel to try and figure out why? No. He just disconnected those outlets and connected them to the circuits that had 120v, and called it a day. So now, you have reverse polarity at all of the outlets. Long story short, there was a security light that comes on when it gets dark that had been connected to one of the 220v circuits, and was damaged by that, such that it had a short circuit in it when turned on. So every night, it would blow the main breaker- because the circuit breakers in the subpanel were connected to neutral, where they were essentially useless. Fortunately, nothing disastrous happened, but it did take me the better part of two days to 1) figure out what the hell was going on, and 2) get it properly sorted, since I had to rewire half the outlets to connect them to the proper circuits.
I'm still getting to grips with surge protectors but I do wonder, if they all have a limited lifespan, why are they even built in to some extension leads when I'm assuming they're not easy to replace that way? It would make more sense to me to take a normal extension lead and change the plug on it to one of these plugs with a built-in surge protector, and then when that protector fails, you can simply buy a new head, or is there a reason that's a bad idea?
You could do that. A surge protector should last a long time if it isn't on a very spiky supply.
There's nothing like standing on the pins of the delightful British plug in the dark.
It makes you and everyone else in the house feel alive as you shriek scornful abuse at the idiot who's left a stray plug or two like a Vietcong spike pit. I had to scumbag brothers who'd make such traps for each other and I was often the victim of their wars!
With an SPD now being installed at the consumer unit, as part of the new 18th edition regulations, these are presumably redundant now?
Perhaps, but it doesn't really hurt to have additional clamps.. And, well, they're redundant only in the approximately 0.05% of installations equipped with SPDs so far.
The more devices that have these will lessen the spike load overall in the house when a spike happens (as the spike will be dissipated among all the plugs that have these on them)
@@ruben_balea that is true as well
SPD is considered Type 2 protection while the plugs ones are Type 3. Both types are recommended to be used together for better protection. ;)
The US has different grade plugs, Hospital, Industrial, etc. does the UK have similar grades?
I want to know how a complex surge protector with filtration works as opposed to this simple one. Like a Thore surge protector...
Presumably those springy pins are rated over 13amps, since they may have been designed for a lamp fitting I am not so sure..
It's good to see that The British do some things right.
Up yours.
Regrettably, recent experience would indicate that this may no longer be the case.
@@speedbird073 Came here to say what you said, thank you :-)
I wish we'd have these electrical plugs in Canada, they seem so much safer and more durable than the flimsy shit we have.
Are we getting these and the surge protected sockets for when every person is driving an electric car and gets home at 6pm and plugs in the car and makes a cuppa tea and we get a huge surge?? :-)
They look like a good idea, if they go the top half can be replaced without disturbing the wiring. I've got the power strip embedded type here, no issues so far. As for your domestic sockets - a case of Part P kitchen fitters ? Not that I have anything against kitchen fitters, just believe their bloody hands should be cut off if they play with electrics ! Discovered in my kitchen 2 sockets in 2.5mm T&E and 1 in 1.5mm T&E all in a 15 amp choc strip. Earthing cable to the earth rod had been cut to get a unit flush to the wall. Thank god I still had a metal gas pipe. New earth rod and wiring done straight away.
Theres this fake company that sells MK stuff but put a sticker of their branding on it.. Most of the times the item they're selling didnt work/is a scam..
They had this "surge arrestor plugs".. The diammeter is the same as any other normal plug, not wider like in the video...
Is K for Carat?👉👜👉🗣👉⚡👈ps the audio is very Barry White..ish😁not displeasureable 👍👈🌞👉
Need to check if there is a shucko F type with MOV, but mostly the F type is big a bulky plug-in socket. Not to say that the british plug is bulky by any means, since it carries a fuse holder just in case.... as for the MOV reference search the part number and check the datasheet, first pages, eg little fuse.
Mic is very crystal clear with voice.
big clive!!!! i found you bc i am trying to reprogram some lights i have n had a question..
i have two strings of lights, led it think, with little control boxes with buttons to change the settings, they can plug together, but don't change to the same setting when one is changed. is there was way to change that in the boxes or would i have to wire them together? thanks!!! these videos are rad
I once heard about how bad knock off apple chargers are and I did buy one off of ebay, so I tore both the original and knock off apart. Man, the differences in them! I do not know a lot about circuits, but the difference was night and day.
The pins are swage punched.
Pressed rather than punched.
@@bdf2718 it's a process called swaging, done with a press/punch tool. Creating a flared edge. Variety of tools to do this operation by either hand or power tool. Rotary and/or press type operation.
@@FryGuyNS Swaging, in general, might be punch or press, depending on substrate material. For brittle PCBs, more likely press.
I'm disappointed that did you didn't check what fuse was connected to what MOV. I'll assume that the one on the line side is in contact with the line-to-earth, and the neutral fuse is in contact with the line-to-neutral. Otherwise, the protection won't break the circuit of the failing MOV. There seems to be NO protection if line and neutral is reversed and the "neutral-to-earth" (now line-to-earth) MOV fails. Seems like a fire hazard to me.
See the schematic I drew out.
@@bigclivedotcom I did. I don't see where you indicated which fuse was associated with which MOV.
The color temperature of that camera looks very nice. It's an inviting warm with nice balance however the focus on the other hand seems a hair dodgy. It's sharp as can be in the upper right but the left 1/3 of the image seems quite soft, especially toward the bottom.
FFS-It's a neon indicator !- Sheech !!
@@davidworsley7969 Too much coffee, lad. I was referring to the picture quality. Did you get enough sleep?
@@Peter_S_ You were ?....Well.....Who'd have thought ? ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
@@davidworsley7969 When is the last time you saw a neon indicator that had a sharp image in the upper right but the left 1/3 of the image seems quite soft? Doesn't add up.
@@Peter_S_ You woke me up to ask me that ? Where is your humanity ?
Not totally keen on the spring connectors, a high resistance connection between the screw head and the plunger or between the two sliding parts means the surge protection wouldn't be effective but could still pass sufficient current to light the neon.
Can we buy OnLine please?
The connection is pogo pins or spring loaded pins, they are becoming more popular with electronic manufacturers as the board connection is just pads ecthed into the circuit design and no cost in parts so the programming connector or test connector is pushed against a set position and makes the connection.
Very rich sound and good video - stick with it sir
No sound for me when 5.1 audio selected in Win10. Needed to switch to 2CH stereo to get sound in this video. All other videos work fine with 5.1 selected
Hi, do these surge protectors stop surges in both directions? I ask as my freezer is on same double socket as my PC and every now and then when the freezer motor kicks in, I get a blank screen and I want to fix that!!!!
It's probably the slight voltage dip cause by the fridge compressor kicking on. Not something a simple filter will help with.
@@bigclivedotcom thanks... I know I can't expect you to... but can you suggest any potential solutions? Its annoying RN but if I want to game its gonna be a "game changer" in all the wrong ways!!
Hi Clive, great video.
The reason for the thermal fuses in contact with the MOV, would possibly be because when MOVs fail, they do as a short and usually split open.
So at sometime they probably get hot, the fuse is to prevent the smoke an flame from occuring.
Yes that is correct.
Once I saw a surge protector after lightning strike catch fire a little while afterwards.
Not at my place somewhere else.
Use the fire extinguisher on that one.
Also nice user image I see your fan of Lego.
On what Minifigures did that come from I'm sure it's an hodgepodge of them.
Are you with adult fan of white girl like me?
Pretty sad that it doesn't indicate that the main(replaceable) fuse is blown or not!
You've just given me another project to add to the list! I am busier now that I am retired than ever when I worked for a living!! Top work Big Clive!! hahaha!
i have used one for 20yrs now & never had a problem.. very interested in your video..
why do surge protectors often use neon indicators instead of LEDs? i imagine they're more expensive, so why use them? i doubt it's because they "look cooler" to the manufacturer.
using LED would require an extra component: diode to prevent reverse current as LEDs cannot stand it ;)
Why do british plugs have a fuse ? Most other countries (that I know of) do not have fuse in the plugs.
As far as I know it's a post war thing when there was a copper shortage so new homes had a ring circuit configuration requiring all plugs to have their own fuses for protection
British socket circuits are in a Ring Topology to increase capacity and save copper. This increased capacity is far more than is safe for any flexible cord. The overcurrent devices having the increased capacity will not reliably trip quickly enough if there is a fault involving a cord increasing the risk of fire. By adding a fuse in the plug the British were able to safely use smaller cords on their appliances without the risk of fire in the event of a fault. A fuse is also required whenever there is a spur off of a ring in fixed wiring.
Because of relatively high current (30/32A) ring final circuits. A small flexible cable (up to about 1.5mm²) could fail catastrophically under such currents, so they're fused at the plugs. Most other countries will use 16A, sometimes 20A, circuits, which even a 1mm² or smaller cable is likely to be able to sustain for some time.
It's a regulation. UK standard. Very thoughtful of them!
@@jrmcferren No, a fuse isn't required for a spur. 433.1.204.
How common are power surges? Is it usually caused by a home appliance or does the surge originate from the supplied mains? Thanks!
Often appliances with high inductive loads like motors can cause spikes.
Best of best. Thanks. Thank you so much.
I can't figure out how you connect the "flex" from your device into this plug. Am I missing something? Doesn't the power need to go through the protection before it goes to the device?
The protection is in parallel it clamps voltage spikes.
Interesting, I don't quite follow how it protects against surges if it's just touching the screws on the wire connectors. Doesn't that mean any surge can just go down the wires unimpeded? It's not between the mains and the appliance as far as I can see so I just don't get how it works.
These are metal oxide varistors , if you connected one in series with your equipment then it would get 0 power unless there was a spike then it would get the spike lol, and go back to being off. Basically giving you only spikes.
Think of a how a diode is like a one way check valve, these are like a 2 way 'check valve' but with a very stiff spring (though they are not built with diode it's just an analogy)
This explains why surge protectors can be a fire risk after initially protecting a surge event
New sound for sure. Like it, voice better matches your insignia.
Hi.Where can I get that online?
It came from a UK supplier called CPC.
PTFE tape wrapped around an eraser is a really good source of pure white for white balance correction without having to pay out the nose for a WB block.
Is WB such a big issue ?
I loved the way filming grass from under a blue tarpaulin turns the grass yellow.
Nice, a new video on one of my favorite topics..
I had to turn my subwoofers off to listen to this, lots of bass in your voice with this setup. Maybe use an audio program to remove any audio under 300hz or so would be good.
That was natural voice with no external microphone.
@@bigclivedotcom I never assumed it was anything different, still need to do a low cut audio though :)
I might be asking a silly question I'm tired after being dragged around in the sunshine by the wife all day, (I'm on holidays in Spain currently) but if its a standard plug base and the circuit board just sits on the three pins monitoring, how does it surge protect? Surely if the surge protection fails the device connected will keep working provided the 13a fuse is intact.......
Clive again apologies if I'm missing something or asking a dumb question.
Regards
Brendan
The MOVs are in parallel with the appliance to be protected, so should shunt out any high-voltage transients. At some point, the MOVs may reach end-of-life, become conductive, trip out the fuses; at that point, the neon will no longer light and (if you check the neon) you'll know to replace the plug-top [so as to get some new MOVs].
It's not exactly fail-safe (!! :-) but it's probably better than nothin' :-)
Nearly all "surge protectors" have this problem, they are parallel connected and do not disconnect the appliance when they fail. So they may absorb some surges, but if a really bad one comes along it will blow out the surge protector and continue it's merry way on to the appliance.