Blank plate with connector block?

[Electrifying]

[I'm wondering why everyone is thinking that 32 A is flowing through the conductors? (i.e. through the OPs connection block) .... The current through one leg of a ring final is not going to be 32 A - or am I missing something??

I think the only thing you're missing is that everyone is being ultra conservative/cautious and assuming the worst possible case scenario ... if the circuit were 'fully loaded' and the entire load was concentrated very close to one end of the ring, then the current in one leg of the ring could 'approach' 32A. In reality, of course, the design assumption (given a good design) is that the current will not exceed 20A in any part of the ring, and I'm sure that's nearly always the case in practice.

Kind Regards, John.

You've got to be kidding.

you'ld have to have TWO double socket outlets located about one metre from the CU, both with significant loads on them.............and then the OPs blanking plate/connectors within that one metre of T&E.

I assume we're talking about the real world, not the extreme scenarios anyone can think up.

C'mon, John, you were thinking 32A flowing around the ring, weren't you??

 

[Paul_C]

Maybe not the full 30 or 32A, but it's not too hard to envisage a situation in which that "assumed" 20A on any one leg of the ring could be exceeded.

Take a ring running 60 ft. in total, with a double socket located at a point 6 ft. around from the distribution board. Throw a 26A load on that double socket, and immediately you have 2.6A in the long leg and 23.4A in the short leg. Such a situation isn't that uncommon where poor design results in two heavy loads in a kitchen (dryer and dishwasher, for example) being put on the same ring very close to the origin of the circuit.

 

[JohnW2]

You've got to be kidding.

In a sense I am, but considering the worst most-extreme-possible (and vanishingly improbable) scenario often seems to be the name of the game around here!

you'ld have to have TWO double socket outlets located about one metre from the CU, both with significant loads on them.............and then the OPs blanking plate/connectors within that one metre of T&E.

Well,'for the record', I potentially have an even worse situation than that in my house here. The ground floor CU is in a utility room, and just below the CU (certainly less than 1 metre) is a row of three double sockets at the start of a ring (total ring length must be 35m+). That room houses, amongst other things, a washer and drier. Those appliances actually have their own separate radial circuit but, if they didn't ....... there could very easily be at least 32A of load (including the spur) connected <1m from the end of the ring at times!

As for the OP's question, as I've said, I really have no interest in the stated 'current rating' of the terminals of whatever he uses to join the conductors behind his blanking plate or whatever. So long as the terminals are a reasonable size for the two conductors concerned (and the ones in the Volex '13A flex outlet plate' certainly are), then I'm perfectly happy.

I assume we're talking about the real world, not the extreme scenarios anyone can think up.

Decide for youself - this is a forum in which people are discussing the possible existance of a high DC voltage on an isolated circuit in a domestic AC installation! Very little is totally impossible in this world, but .....

C'mon, John, you were thinking 32A flowing around the ring, weren't you??

Well, to be totally honest, for a brief initial period I did find myself thinking that, as I suspect other contributors to this thread also did. However, once I got my thinking straight, it occurred to me that, nevertheless, some joker was going to wheel out the 'extreme scenario'.

Kind Regards, John.