28 Apr
2012
28 Apr
'12
2:17 p.m.
On 28 April 2012 21:58, Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> wrote:
On 2012 Apr 28, at 1:40 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas
wrote:
Yep. It's a distribution panel. Single master switch and Individual
fuses or breakers for each circuit, in one handy convenient unit. In
this case, it was being used to split a 40A (240V) underground cable
? What is a "consumer unit", Rob?
I was going to ask that too. Metering stuff? Or what we in North America
call the breaker panel, perhaps? A distribution panel of some sort, as the
fuse/breaker arrangement is different in the UK than NA? I've never been
clear on all the in-house mains arrangements/requirements in the UK. from the house. 5A circuit for the lights, a 32A ring
main[1] and two
20A circuits via timers for storage heaters.
[1] Standard UK wiring for sockets is to feed a single cable from a
32A fuse/breaker in a daisy chain around all the sockets in an area
and back to the fuse again, hence the "ring". I think standard 2.5mm^2
twin-and-earth is usually rated 20A max, but any given socket has two
paths back to the fuse, so can potentially sink substantially more.
Sockets are all identical, but our plugs all have their own fuses, at
various ratings suitable for the appliances they are connected to, up
to a maximum of 13A.
Rob