Consider a socket outlet on a ring mains. Let's just look at the live connections and forget neutral for the sake of simplicity.
There'll be one wire in and one out to complete the ring. But there's also a third connection out for the current, that being for the socket itself. Current flows fromt that junction within the socket to the socket itself.
So there should be no difference in the connections and flow of current if I were to join the two live cables from the ring circuit together and then add a 3rd cable to carry current to the socket.
I could join all 3 cables together into a junction box. Then I can do a similar connection with the neutral cables and join all the earths together.
So all this should be the same in terms of connections and current flow as the usual socket being connected directly to the ring with one in and one out.
But hang on, isn't that set-up with the junction box called a spur? Why can't I add a second spur when I would have been able to add one to the socket directly? In the case of a spur directly off a socket, there is current flowing out into 2 sockets but the junction box will have current flowing out into only one socket and no more spurs allowed.
Can anyone clarify my confusion?
There'll be one wire in and one out to complete the ring. But there's also a third connection out for the current, that being for the socket itself. Current flows fromt that junction within the socket to the socket itself.
So there should be no difference in the connections and flow of current if I were to join the two live cables from the ring circuit together and then add a 3rd cable to carry current to the socket.
I could join all 3 cables together into a junction box. Then I can do a similar connection with the neutral cables and join all the earths together.
So all this should be the same in terms of connections and current flow as the usual socket being connected directly to the ring with one in and one out.
But hang on, isn't that set-up with the junction box called a spur? Why can't I add a second spur when I would have been able to add one to the socket directly? In the case of a spur directly off a socket, there is current flowing out into 2 sockets but the junction box will have current flowing out into only one socket and no more spurs allowed.
Can anyone clarify my confusion?