at9
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Posts posted by at9
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One of the consequences of having 32A final ciruits is that you really need a fuse in the plug. This is largely to protect the flex, not the appliance. Most countries have 16A or 20A finals which is just about adequate to protect all but the thinnest flexes. There are several problems with the fused plug. The worst (IMO) is that when loaded with more than about 10A there are plenty of plugs whose quality is marginal and they overheat. I've seen scorch marks on too many plugs and sockets caused by poor fuse contacts or sometimes poor contacts in the socket. The German Schuko (and similar French design) used in many countries is generally better quality. It also allows many small double insulated appliances to have a very compact 2 pin plug.
So in conclusion the UK BS1363 13amp system is generally OK but rather clunky and suffers some failures. If you were starting from scratch now you wouldn't invent it. There have been a few attempts to invent a new system for the UK but none have got anywhere. Changing over would be almost impossible. Though the Italians are gradually changing from their own unique sockets to Schuko.
PS: I have sometimes done electrical wiring at home while wearing heels:-)
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The US arrangements sound far too complicated. In the UK and Europe we have almost universally 3 phase. 230V phse to neutral and 400V phase to phase. The neutral is earthed (grounded) at the star point of th distribution transformer. Domestic users get a single phase, commercial and industrial users get all 3. That's it. Unless you're a big industrial user in which case you'll take power at 11kV or higher.
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Gudulitooo, in France, you have the problem of the "disjoncteur" (circuit breaker) fitted by the power company that trips if you take what is a very modest amount of current by UK standards. Most houses in the UK have a supply that can deliver between 60A and 100A. If everyouse did that all the time the system would break but fortunately the average demand is quite small.
I'm sure every country has its quirks. The Japanese have both 50Hz and 60Hz power!
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Most countries use radial wiring. This is just a string of socket outlets run from the fuseboard. This wiki article explains the ring final (the term "ring main" is commonly if incorrectly used) better than I can. The ring final is really only used in the UK and possibly in Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_circuit
Here's the intro from that article:
" In electricity supply design, a ring final circuit or ring circuit (often incorrectly called a ring main or informally a ring) is an electrical wiring technique developed and primarily used in the United Kingdom. This design enables the use of smaller-diameter wire than would be used in a radial circuit of equivalent total current. The reduced diameter conductors in the flexible cords connecting an appliance to the plug intended for use with sockets on a ring circuit are individually protected by a fuse in the plug. Its advantages over radial circuits are therefore reduced quantity of copper used, and greater flexibility of appliances and equipment that can be connected. "
A ring main, strictly speaking, is somethng rather different. Ring topology is often used on high voltage networks to provide fault resilience. Doesn't alwys work as I found out a few years ago. One day my power failed. Then came back for a few hours, then failed again. the electric company had to bring in mobile generators for almost a week until they could fix the blown cables. Apparently some old undeground 11kV cables had failed. You wouldn't want to have been standing over the ground where that happened, it blew a nice hole. The auto-reclosing circuit breakers had restored power (may have been done manually, I don't know for certain). Then the other leg of the 11kV ring, overstressed from having to support more load failed too. They had a lay a fair bit of new underground 11kV cable to fix all that.
In some urban areas, notably central London, the low voltage network (400V delta, 230V star) is in mesh configuration. With lots of feeds from different transformers, all interconencted more or less at random. This give high fault tolerance but also very high prospective fault currents. Every now and then an underground joint box explodes. It's a miracle nobody's been seriously hurt.
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9 hours ago, Puffer said:
One big electrical advantage we have in the UK is a standardised 230V AC single-phase domestic mains supply. Our electric kettles boil quickly and don't need large (and therefore expensive) supply cables! (2.5mm sq is the standard for a ring main, allowing up to 24A in most configurations.)
In the UK every outlet can deliver 3kW so can feed a good, fast kettle, a washing machine or just about any appliance. Same is true in most European countries.
The ring final circuit is just about unique to the UK and allows 32A to be taken from a circuit wired in 2.5mm^2 cable. The use of rings is now discouraged for new installations. mainly because it's harder to verify that they are correctly done and also that faults can develop un-noticed. Best practice is now 20A radial with 2.5mm^2 cable or 32A radial with 4mm^2 cable.
Remember that the USA has a Federal system of government where all sorts of regulations can vary between states.
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I read @Shyheels' last post very carefully in case his spelling or grammar had slipped:-)
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26 minutes ago, Shyheels said:
Dresses or skirts are designed to be worn solely by women ......
Garments that closely resemble skirts and dresses are worn widely by men. For skirt-like garments the scottish klit the nearest to home for me but there are numerous other examples. In biblical lands and times men wore commonly wore robes, a kind of dress.
The sarong is a sort of skirt, widely worn by both men and women in some countries.
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Not sure that HHP is really the place to be pushing a political agenda, be it conservative or liberal. Or communist, facist or any other for that matter.
Incidentally, should "stepping on hypocrites" be done in stilettos, or will flats be sufficient?
As Tom Lehrer once said: "There are people who do not love their fellow man. And I hate people like that!"
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Surprisingly, according to this source, India has more PV manufacture than China:
https://www.pv-tech.org/news/key-solar-manufacturing-location-trends-in-2016
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3 hours ago, HappyinHeels said:
As for electricity it is generally given credit to the person who first perfected the science and then made it available to the masses.
I'm not sure that's a generally valid definition. As a counterexample take television. In the USA the names that come to the fore are usually Jenkins and Farnsworth. In the UK it's Baird who did the world's first witnessed demo of television in January 1925. None of these really brought TV to the masses. That was done by RCA in the US and Marconi-EMI in the UK.
The world's first public electricity supply was in 1881 in Godalming, a small town not far from London: http://www.godalmingmuseum.org.uk/index.php?page=1881-godalming-and-electricity
The same year there was also a trial scheme in in Brighton, on the south coast of England. Neither of these had any famous names or companies involved. Again in 1881 the Savoy Theatre in London was lit by electric light, the first public building to be lit thus. The lamps were supplied by Joseph Swan: https://gsarchive.net/carte/savoy/electric.html
The following year (1882) Edison set up schemes in both London and New York. There was then rapid expansion in many countries.
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Tesla is still a bit of an enigma. I place him as genius and nutcase in equal measure. The greatest thing he handed down to us was the 3 phase AC system. With its efficient motors and generators. The basis of virtually all electricty generation, distribution and usage for over 100 years.
Shyheels correctly says that over geologic time the climate has had some huge extremes. Wouldn't have have been very habitable for us, had we been around at the time.
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57 minutes ago, HappyinHeels said:
Or Thomas Edison inventing electricity when it is now known that Nikola Tesla actually perfected it but he was a poor businessman who allowed others to steal his ideas and get away with it.......
I didn't know electricity had been invented. Rather like Newton invented gravity. The ancient Greeks knew about some electrical phenomena. Their word for amber gave us the word "electricity". In terms of understanding electricity the best known pioneers were Galvani, Volta, Ohm, Ampere, Oersted and perhaps greatest of all, Faraday. All at least half a century before Tesla and Edison. Faraday discovered how to make an electric current flow using magnetism. The principle used in almost all electrical generation to this day.
Edison was one of the pioneers of public electricty supplies. He supplied the whole system, from generators to distribution to lamps. His DC system lost out to the Tesla/Westinghouse AC system for some very good engineering (and economic) reasons.
As for the electric light bulb, there were a number of pioneers before Edison. The best known, in the UK at least, was Joseph Swan. His patent position was so strong that the notoriously litigious Edison decided it wasn't worth fighting. They jointly set up the Ediswan company to make lamps in the UK.
As for climate change, talk about "saving the planet" is a load of rubbish. The planet will get on perfectly well whatever we do to it. Though things might not be very comfortable for us humans. I forget who said that the planet might shake us off, rather like a bad case of fleas. There is a very good case for taking good care of spaceship earth with its incredible and complex life support systems. Never mind any high flown "green" messages. Just out of sheer self interest. Coal mining will die out, not because of green campaigns, but simply on econmic grounds. When it's cheaper to build PV and grid scale storage than to burn coal or gas guess where the smart money will be going. PV and wind are already cost competitive. Grid scale storage will get there pretty soon. It's essential to have it for when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing.
Forgot to say that China is investing in more PV capacity than any other country. Like other countries that industrialised, they've found that smog isn't nice.
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I don't mind paying the VAT on imports (and duty if applicable). What I object to is the (usually) £13.50 "handling" fee you have to pay to Royal Mail etc. If the order is for a few thousand pounds of kit that fee deosn't really matter but for a few tens of pounds it makes it totally uneconomic.
I should add that most imporst I've done have been realted to my business. Since I'm VAT registered I can claim the VAT back from HMRC.
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I don't fly a lot but a few months ago flew from London Luton to Rome. There were quite a few women in heels, though only a tiny fraction of the total.
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Don't know if anyone has mentioned it before on HHP but this website has a lot of useful information for those with larger feet. That's from UK9/EU43/US11 upwards.
https://www.prettybigshoes.com/
Especially their listing of stores etc that have larger sizes: https://www.prettybigshoes.com/shops
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First time I've seen a .webp image. Not even heard of the format before. Irfanview opened it OK.
Not really my style but good luck anyway with finding the boots.
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Like Shyheels, I was struck by "heels = gay" assumption. I have no real evidence to support this but I suspect that the fraction of gay men who wear heels is smaller than the fraction of straight men.
Some very crude methodology. If we use the common assumption that gay men are about 10% of all men then the fraction of gay men here at HHP seems lower than that.
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I've seen white ankle boots in shops in London. Haven't noticed anyone wearing them.
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Loads of videos of her playing heels such as:
I mentioned her in another thread a few years ago but can't find it at the moment.
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May I encourage people to read and understand this book. The subject has far wider application than men in heels.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Lie-Statistics-Penguin-Business/dp/0140136290
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Some examples I found online.
https://picclick.co.uk/Vintage-1970s-Mens-Platform-Shoes-Brown-Tan-173292622473.html
First image here: http://www.hotboots.com/bootinfo/special.html
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@Shyheels, I have seen men, as men, in high heels. I exclude fancy dress parties, Rocky Horror, drag shows, rock stars, cross-dressers and suchlike as high heels would be commonly seen on men in these circumstances.
I'm old enough to remember the 1970s when heeled footware for men was commonplace. I wonder if or when it will ever come round again. More recently I've seen men in heeled footware around Camden Town in London. But that's the sort of area where you'll see all sorts of unusual clothing. Aside from that, perhaps the occasional pair of cowboy boots with a 2" heel. I've seen expensive heeled footwear for men on display in high-end stores such as Selfridges. Not seen it being worn.
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A couple of years ago I went to a halloween Rocky Horror at the Phoenix cinema in East FInchley which isn't far from my home. I went dressed up and won the "best dressed up" award by audience acclamation. It was fun being a rock star for a few minutes. Amongst other things I wore my avatar shoes. There aren't any usable photos which is a shame.
The High Heeled Ruminations Of Melrose Plant
in For the guys
Posted
Only if they have platforms. Otherwise it's no more than you could do by standing on your toes. I was given a pair of goth style boots with 3" platforms and 5" heels. Very comfortable but deceptive and potentially treacherous. I've worn them for halloween and occasional parties. Would be good for cutting my hedges where I can only just about reach the tops.
I don't think the regs explicitly give a distance above DPC. But it would be against the regs to install ordinary flush mounted domestic sockets in a wall that was known or likely to be damp. There is a requirement to site sockets sufficiently above horizontal surfaces to ensure that the flex isn't stressed as it exits the plug. This distance isn't explicity stated in the regs but is commonly taken as 6"/150mm.
A domestic user should never have to do these sorts of calculations. The whole point of a corectly designed installation is that you can use it in any reasonable way (and many unreasonable ways) without causing overloads. Of course you can defeat the system. If you have a washing machine, tumble drier, toaster, electric kettle and fan heater all working at once you'll be pushing or exceeding the limits of a 32A circuit. That's why special care must be taken when designing kitchen wiring. Perhaps providing a separate circuit for washer and dryer. In UK regs a 32A final circuit can serve an unlimited number of sockets in a house but these must be within a 100 sq metre area. Perfectly sensible for most purposes. For commercial/industrial premises the designer must work out likely usage rather than use customary limits.
CIrcuit protection by fuses and circuit breakers is actually a complicated subject. Here's a very basic primer on the subject. A 13A fuse doesn't blow as soon as you take 13.5A. In fact it won't blow for quite a long time even if you take 20A.The design aim is that the fuse should blow or breaker trip before the wiring reaches a harmful temperature. Whether that takes seconds or hours. It's very hard to protect against small overloads. 22A will take a very long time to blow a 20A fuse. The wiring may start to deteriorate if that happens too often. Conversely a fuse/breaker has to be able to interrupt a potentially very large current in the event of a short circuit. I've seen thin flex explode in a shower of sparks where it has shorted due to wear and tear. The fuse shoudl have blown before the flex but didn't.