innovation in electrics

I wired a TP&N machine this week which consumes 80A per phase. It had push fit terminals for the supply. It just felt kind of wrong. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I like to know I've properly nipped up terminals especially on a supply that big.

Thorn have been using push fit terminals on their pop packs as long as I remember. They're a huge pita if it's a loop in or some slightly none standard wiring arrangement.

We have seen the ideas But these ideas come and go remember the Fitall Plug there were in the early days many different plugs quite a few fused. We after the war adopted the 13A plug which resulted in a one plug fits all for UK. This has clearly stopped any alternative systems from being developed for 13A and under. This was clearly good it has happened with many items both due to market forces and government. I seem to remember reading there were 250 car manufacturers in the UK. I went into a museum and looked at one of these cars and thanked god no one drives it now.

Some of the old stuff is not at first glance obvious why no longer used. Talk about the old Oxford oil filled welding machine and many a welder will tell you how good they were. But it had major faults as well. The oil could damage the supply cable. and if dropped the bare wires inside could drop and touch each other so there was a chance of the output becoming live as a result the output was earthed which then resulted in earth wires being burn out by welding currents. Electrical they were a nightmare.

We do have some problems with plugs today. We want to be able to switch on a standard or table light from the wall but the plug is no longer made so we have to use some alternative. work for the ceiling but there is no reasonable socket for the wall. So we use the 5A plug but that means other items can also be plugged in the plug is not recognised as lighting only.

So the whole idea of standard 13A has caused some draw backs. Clearly we can wire so there is no problem with power taken either dedicated or from ring and 20A light switches with or without fuses and 13A outlets for standard lamps can still be switched.

Although I show the Click lighting plug which we all recognise as dedicated for lighting in BS 7671 there is no mention of this standard as being permitted.

So why no initiative inventions? Simple our rule book does not allow them.

There is a lot of insulation on the pins of that insulated plug. Probably required

messimagician said:

Does anyone else find that the innovation in electrics is much slower than most other fields ?

Click to expand...

I'm not so sure about that.

Plug in ceiling roses, Dali lighting control systems, LED lighting, Dado trunking, Basket tray, merlin's iso-bar, plug on busbar trunking, form 3 switchgear, addressable fire detection.

A 2014 installation is quite vastly different to a 1974 one.

I had some, made in 1955 by AEI, 2G plate with socket and fcu.

Ideal for kitchen use.

Regards,

DS

The big change at moment seems to be central heating. The control seem to be a major problem with loads of unsuitable devices being sold.

Years ago we had a boiler which heated water and a pump sent it around a collection of radiators and we tried to throttle back each radiator so a single electric thermostat would control the lot.

However the condensating boiler changed all that if the water arrived back too warm it would close down the boiler. So the thermostatic radiator valve was then fitted to every radiator each room now individually controlled the electric thermostat was a thing of the past.

Time moves on and we want to save money so back to electric and we get the TRV with a timer built in so bedrooms only get warm at night and living rooms only in the day.

We move to next stage the wifi controlled TRV so we can alter the times and temperatures from our phones for each room and also link to intruder alarm so when alarm set heat is auto reduced.

Then we see a host of adverts wanting use to step back in time and use a single device to control the temperature of whole house. Clearly designed for US market where hot air not water is used but the really aggressive advertising campaign for nest and hive seems to be winning over common sense.

Be it a Sinclair C5 or any other invention it's not the invention it's the marking upset some news paper and they can kill it before it every gets off the ground. Grease the right palms and even a daft invention will sell. Wonder how much was paid to marking guy for British Gas for the daft single point thermostats?

Timing is also important loads of remote controlled lights with dimmer included came out just as we moved to CFL which would not work with dimmers.

JohnW2 said:

stillp said:

They've been around in medium current applications (<63A) for several decades. Properly designed and constructed, they are far more reliable than screw terminals.

Click to expand...

Interesting. In what areas/contexts? I certainly have seen extremely few in items relating to domestic electrical installations.

Kind Regards, John

Click to expand...

because it seems domestic electricians appear to be in many cases to resist change! i love wago's industrial din rail terminals- i have fitted thousands in the last 10 or so years and have not had an issue with any, the newer top job terminals don't require the use of a tool to connect the cable you just push it in saves hours on multicores.

list the 95mm terminals where less than 15 quid each but they are so easy and fast to connect they pay for themselves