RCA student radically improves the UK plug | Hacker News Reader

RCA student radically improves the UK plug

iconeye.com

35 pointsalexandros11 comments

Open articleView on HN

74 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=782236

2 months ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/9djgs/a_radicall...

4 months ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/8uvbh/1cm_thi...

etc etc.

I see your point. But let's not take in reddit submissions in this case.

How are the reddit links relevant? Not everyone on HN follows reddit, in fact I personally stopped following reddit after I discovered HN because HN has more mature and tech-orientated posts and discussions.

However you're right, and there was a link to the youtube video up on HN over four months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=670856

This was posted a while back; isn't the whole point of the UK design to be able to embed fuses in the plug itself? I assume that that would mean this design is dangerous in early post-WW2 houses where the integrated fuse design was meant to save on wiring (which I only know thanks to a previous HN post about the history of electric plugs...)

this is the artist's page about the idea: http://www.minkyu.co.uk/Site/Product/Entries/2009/4/20_Foldi...

if you scroll down enough, you'll see an image of the fuse popping out of the little handle.

Fuses in the plugs serve a secondary purpose, one that people don't realise. The conventional wisdom today is that the circuit breaker is the safety measure, however people infrequently jam their circuit breakers open instead of paying $50 for a higher amperage (it's uncommon, but it happens way too much). This causes 2 main problems, the first is that it allows potentially unlimited current to flow until either A) the breaker fails, or B) the wiring fails, and either can easily burn you house down. The second problem is that breakers usually flip because of a ground fault (hence the breakers being ground fault interrupters), not high current draw, and jamming the breaker open allows electricity to flow to ground, which either A) allows you to be electrocuted, or B) the Earth wiring fails and your house burns down.

The fuse still serves a great purpose in that if your equipment fails and you was stupid enough to jam the G.F.I. open, then the fuse will near instantly fail as the amperage drawn will go through the roof. The second function they serve, is that many plugs are equipped with a 3A fuse, but they're on a 15-30A G.F.I., which means if the equipment fails in a spectacularly bad way you can have up to 10 times the amperage flowing through wires that can't handle it... unless you have a fuse.

I was always dubious of how unlikely it must be to damage the neutral+earth but not the live. However, when working as an electrician I managed to slice just those two whilst working, which is the important reason to turn mains power off while doing electrical or construction work in a house, either by running off a generator or by running a dedicated extension line from the breaker box. You can always know where your extension is, you can't always know where a live electrical cable is inside a wall (even with a detector).

Don't Do That Then.

A better unsafe solution is to upgrade the breaker without upgrading the wiring or outlet. Breakers are usually $5-10 and most wiring won't burst in to flame from an extra 5 amps.

Note that fuse-in-plug does not keep you from overloading a circuit; it only helps when the device itself malfunctions.

Disclaimer: sometimes it will burst in to flames. You shouldn't actually do this.

Wiring typically has ~100% safety margin built in, however this cannot be counted on. If your wiring takes 15A, it should in theory handle 30A safely. HOWEVER, any nick or sharp bend in the wiring can increase resistance in the wiring, or even worse decrease the electrical resistance of the cable insulation. Heat also amplifies this problem, so an overloaded wire handling 30A in the cold of a Siberian winter might not handle it in a sweltering summer.

The safety margin is there for safety, just like how skydivers have a reserve chute, it doesn't mean you should rely solely on your reserve day after day.

Personally I would never overload house wiring, it's just not worth the risk. However I do occasionally overload extension cords (they have the same ~100% safety margin) for certain quick tasks where the cable doesn't heat up, but I'd certainly never push a 15A cable to 30A . . . I got close to something similar, a 14A appliance on a 8A extension because I was a moron and didn't read the label.

Also it's good to note that, not all cabling or extensions have the 100% safety margin, this margin is in place so that any defective products should still meet the minimum requirement.

Yes, it was posted before, a few times at least. And looking at the videos and reading the comments makes it clear that the design does, in fact, have a fuse.

Very classy-looking! I'm surprised this is 'art' and not 'industrial design'.

http://www.rca.ac.uk/Default.aspx?ContentID=159384

The guys BA has worked as a graphic designer (advertising copy by the looks of it) but took his MA in "Design Products".

Edit: another of their alumni, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Day_%28designer%29

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