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From: Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: British (european?) kitchen counter electric outlets
Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2024 07:39:51 +0100
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On 16/06/2024 03:23, Edward Rawde wrote:
> "bud--" <null@void.com> wrote in message news:lBrbO.17569$iz_6.16993@fx14.iad...
>> On 6/11/2024 9:26 PM, Grant Taylor wrote:
>>> On 6/10/24 23:45, bud-- wrote:
>>>> As I expect you figured out, Christmas lights have tiny wire and need protection.
>>>
>>> Christmas lights are just the only example that came to mind in the U.S.A.
>>>
>>> I would personally prefer to have a 13A fuse on an extension cord plugged into a 15A outlet so that the fuse would blow close to
>>> where I'm using the cord instead of having to traipse through a building to the breaker panel.
>>>
>>>> Probably somewhere in this thread, the UK you have 30-32A ring circuits and current about half here with correspondingly small
>>>> cord wire so you need fuses in plugs. One fuse?
>>>
>>> I would think that you'd want to open the (both) hot(s). Much like how you want a double poll breaker to open both hots on a 240
>>> V domestic load in the U.S.A.
>>>
>>> Blowing / opening one hot would still leave live power via the other hot in a dual hot cord.
>>>
>>
>> I think UK is 230V hot-neutral?
> 
> When I was growing up it was 240V live-neutral.
> And changing to 230V would have been unthinkable due to the number of "why has my TV picture width shrunk" complaints which would
> have occurred.
> I may have heard the word "hot" in other contexts but not for AC power.
> Also, some wiring installations still existed with live (hot) in red, neutral in black and earth (ground) in green.

They still exist in older buildings. New wiring with that old code is 
not allowed.
> 
> It may be the case that 240V has now been reduced to 230V in line with the rest of Europe.
> And these days most, perhaps all, electronics won't care about the difference.

No we have a nominal 230vac which in practice varies between 220vac and 
255vac depending on where you are and local loading. Our mains was 
sometimes high enough to blow filament light bulbs. In cities such wide 
variations are much less common but single line rural feeds are higher 
near the transformer so that the folk at the far end get the volts.

> In the UK I remember being asked to wire a plug for a 230V piece of equipment which had arrived from the US.
> Fortunately by then I knew that black wasn't neutral in the US.

-- 
Martin Brown