My loft has a strip light and switch already installed. I want to install a double socket to power the aerial booster (and scalectrix!) - can i simply install the double socket on the cable just before the switch for the light?
Loft socket installation
- Thread starter shankdock
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NO!
The light you mention is most likely on a 5A radial lighting circuit. You cannot go powering scalextrics and whatever else with this. Sounds like you use your loft as a hobby room, and although the booster and scalextric use less than 5A, this is NOT allowed, and you probably want more power in future for, say, a computer, or tv etc.
(although, it is acceptable to connect a single 5A round-pin socket to a lighting circuit for the sole purpose of powering a signal booster)
What you need is an extension of the upstairs ring (not a spur, in case you need more sockets later up there). Disconnect one cable from a socket in a bedroom, and extend this using crimps and 2.5mm cable, up to the socket in the loft. Run another piece of 2.5mm t+e back down to the original socket and connect as it was before.
The light you mention is most likely on a 5A radial lighting circuit. You cannot go powering scalextrics and whatever else with this. Sounds like you use your loft as a hobby room, and although the booster and scalextric use less than 5A, this is NOT allowed, and you probably want more power in future for, say, a computer, or tv etc.
(although, it is acceptable to connect a single 5A round-pin socket to a lighting circuit for the sole purpose of powering a signal booster)
What you need is an extension of the upstairs ring (not a spur, in case you need more sockets later up there). Disconnect one cable from a socket in a bedroom, and extend this using crimps and 2.5mm cable, up to the socket in the loft. Run another piece of 2.5mm t+e back down to the original socket and connect as it was before.
In this situation I don't think I'd bother extending the ring, I'd just take a spur from it, probably easier, avoids using crimps etc (as most people don't have the tools for them), less to squash in the backbox, etc, and for what is going to be used in the loft, a spur is perfectly adequate, though if you want sockets in more than one location in the loft then its going to have to be a fused spur, using an FCU
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crafty1289 said:
Or even a 2A one.
The 6A breaker will provide fault protection, and you don't fit 2A plugs to things that take more than 2A, and you don't get things like those white cubes for them (not readily anyway), you might also be able to get fused plugs as well, but I've only seen these in the 15A size so far.
In practice, I would be more worried about a standard 13A double socket, that most people wouldn't know wasn't rated to handle two electric fires, rings that can be unbalenced, and can be broken without anything stopping working.
This system is also used on the continent, plugs and sockets rated at below the protective device feeding the circuit, and no fuse in the plug, Dosen't seem to cause problems in practice
In practice, I would be more worried about a standard 13A double socket, that most people wouldn't know wasn't rated to handle two electric fires, rings that can be unbalenced, and can be broken without anything stopping working.
This system is also used on the continent, plugs and sockets rated at below the protective device feeding the circuit, and no fuse in the plug, Dosen't seem to cause problems in practice
Adam_151 said:
Although the plugs are not fused on the continent I think you will find that there is a fuse in each socket. And in France all fuses are of differing sizes so that you can not physically uprate the circuit.
I've never seen one...pdcelec said:
ban-all-sheds said:
you have to remove the socket pins since these hold the fuse in place behind the plate
Odd.
Having removed and refitted sockets in Germany (both sides), Spain, France and Russia, I can say with total confidence that they were all unfused (and L-N polarity is a bit variable as to left or right.). However, the whole circuit is either on a 16A bottle fuse, or a 16A type C MCB, and wired in 1.5mm 3 core round cable, with a full diameter, fullz insulated earth (except in one altbau building East Germany, where there were only 2 aluminium wires, and earth was regenerated at the socket by a link to neutral -ugh!).
The only ones I've ever seen with fuses are made by British makers to be fitted to a UK ring main for visitors in international hotels etc.
Normally lights and power are on the same radial. Both fused plugs and this lights-power separation lark is essentially a Britsh fetish.
Having removed and refitted sockets in Germany (both sides), Spain, France and Russia, I can say with total confidence that they were all unfused (and L-N polarity is a bit variable as to left or right.). However, the whole circuit is either on a 16A bottle fuse, or a 16A type C MCB, and wired in 1.5mm 3 core round cable, with a full diameter, fullz insulated earth (except in one altbau building East Germany, where there were only 2 aluminium wires, and earth was regenerated at the socket by a link to neutral -ugh!).
The only ones I've ever seen with fuses are made by British makers to be fitted to a UK ring main for visitors in international hotels etc.
Normally lights and power are on the same radial. Both fused plugs and this lights-power separation lark is essentially a Britsh fetish.
I dont have total confidence in electric circuits in other parts of the world.
A few months ago I saw a new installation done by East European electricians.
A 2.5 mm ring main had one end connected to a 32 A MCB and the other end connected to ANOTHER 32 A MCB. Due to nice low supply impedances the short to earth fault on the circuit smartly tripped BOTH MCBs together when the CU was powered!
Tony Glazier
A few months ago I saw a new installation done by East European electricians.
A 2.5 mm ring main had one end connected to a 32 A MCB and the other end connected to ANOTHER 32 A MCB. Due to nice low supply impedances the short to earth fault on the circuit smartly tripped BOTH MCBs together when the CU was powered!
Tony Glazier
Neither do I. A stint in India completely removed what little feeling of 'nö-one would be silly enough to do that' I had left after an earlier visit to China...
Twisted joins in overhead 11KV feed, drooping dangerously low, substation transformers sitting in the mud at street level, with a hand painted sign requesting 'Public not to urinate on the terminals' I guess its OK for company men is it?
Earthing, well not really present. Lots of wires in sockets without plugs. Lots of twist and tape joins -some quite nicely spliced, some like a right hedgehog.
However, Europe is generally pretty good, and in their favour they don't have our reduced earths and potentially fire starting ringmains.
Also the 16A type C circuit breaker that is dominating over the old bottle fuses now in Germany and other countries, always blows before a representative BS1363 13A fuse, at almost any level of fault current you like, so the level of protection for flexes and so on is very similar in practice. I agree a lot of the older stuff, particularly in the former eastern bloc, is dangermouse, but to be fair it is being actively phased out, which is more than we can say for the 1970s copper shortage ring mains where the 1mm CPC melts before the 30A wylex fuses -or even the 'fused neutral' pre 1936 service heads so popular in the greater London area..
I note its taken the 2002 ESQ regulations to force their removal
Twisted joins in overhead 11KV feed, drooping dangerously low, substation transformers sitting in the mud at street level, with a hand painted sign requesting 'Public not to urinate on the terminals' I guess its OK for company men is it?
Earthing, well not really present. Lots of wires in sockets without plugs. Lots of twist and tape joins -some quite nicely spliced, some like a right hedgehog.
However, Europe is generally pretty good, and in their favour they don't have our reduced earths and potentially fire starting ringmains.
Also the 16A type C circuit breaker that is dominating over the old bottle fuses now in Germany and other countries, always blows before a representative BS1363 13A fuse, at almost any level of fault current you like, so the level of protection for flexes and so on is very similar in practice. I agree a lot of the older stuff, particularly in the former eastern bloc, is dangermouse, but to be fair it is being actively phased out, which is more than we can say for the 1970s copper shortage ring mains where the 1mm CPC melts before the 30A wylex fuses -or even the 'fused neutral' pre 1936 service heads so popular in the greater London area..
I note its taken the 2002 ESQ regulations to force their removal
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crafty1289 said:
How does one protect 13A socket on a 32A ring?
A 13A fuse in the plug!securespark said:
2A and 5A plugtops don't have fuses, so you're relying on whatever is in the CU to protect it.
Consequently, in my opinion, if you have 2A lighting sockets they should be fed from a 2A MCB.
Cheers,
Howard
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