Neat blade fuse idea

I shudder to think what a UK electrical system is like. My only experience
with British systems are Lucas electrics.

Nor do we. We use selective tripping, where the circuit nearest the fault
opens to protect the rest of the circuit. No American system trips the
breaker when the bulb burns out. None. If your light bulb blowing is
causing your circuit breaker to trip, then it's not America's fault that
you can't design and build electrical circuits. See Lucas.

OIC. Old age. Care to explain that? Or is that another exception to Ohm's
Law peculiar to British circuits?

Heh. YOUR circuit breaker trips whenever a bulb blows and I'M the one
without a clue!

D'you have ANY idea of how absurd you sound?

Look, son, electrical circuits react the same throughout the world. Just
because you don't understand what's going on doesn't mean that you're
right.

You have excess current for the protective features you're employing. Pull
the circuit breaker and do an amperage test on it. If it trips at the rated
current, then buy American bulbs for your lamps. Or even Chinese.
Anything's better than British.

Remember Lucas.

And didn't you PLONK! me?

The 'net ain't what it used to be.

doc

 

You want to play?

(pulls pin, counts to 3, no more, no less)

Catch.

 

Thank God for small favors, innit?

doc

 

Wicked Uncle Nigel wrote

Well yes and no really.

Yeah, I can dig that. See, it shouldn't happen. I can see how it does
mind but it still shouldn't happen.

It is either this or start wrapping ferrite around yer ring

Mongvan is currently sans functioning battery. It appears the object in
the cubby hole behind the turbo bay is merely designed to look like one.
Halfords will have stock come Thursday, then it is away at the garage as
soon as I can to have its bits tightened down and a MOT and then it can
go back to rusting slowly on the drive again.

Only if we go on a Monday. Although I was hoping to have the VT fettled
enough by summer to take it out on adventures.

 

Thank God for eight-second fuses.

Doc

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, steve auvache

I know that. I'm still in search of a helpful opinion from someone with
clue.

It's been like it for the last eight or ten years, and I'm not dead yet,
mind.

Sort it. Hie thee hence to Septicistan and **** a few American Beauties,
that'll cheer you up.

Jolly good.

Jolly gooder.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - There are few things in life more sinister than a
public toilet with the lid closed.

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha GTS1000

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, steve auvache

Ooh! Look what I just found on:

http://www.letsfixit.co.uk/html/lamps_faq.html

"Q: Why does a Circuit Breaker trip when a lamp fails?

A: This is a very common problem, and nothing to worry about. You may
even find that a couple will go in a multi-light fitting in the same
week. This because if you bought all the lamps together when it was new,
they will tend to fail fairly close to the expected 1000 hour life,
since modern manufacturing techniques produce lamps with the same
internal characteristics time after time. The reasons for the CB
tripping out, are due to the fact that when the filament fails, for a
very brief milli-second or so, it draws a “plasma†like arc (spark),
in the vacuum of the glass, as the 2 ends of the filaments part. Because
this is a high current, relative to the CB tripping current, it will
trip as it is designed to do that. There is supposed to be a little
glass fusible element one one of the lead-out wires in the neck of the
bulb, but I have never known these blow fast enough before the CB
detects the high current. Sometimes the wires vapourise during this high
current state, and I have known the glass envelope part company with the
metal base with some force! Again, nothing to worry about, but it can
make quite a bang in a glass ceiling fitting!"

There, I can rest easy.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - There are few things in life more sinister than a
public toilet with the lid closed.

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha GTS1000

 

Wicked Uncle Nigel wrote

All conjecture though innit?

A tiny weenie spike is going to be generated every time you disconnect
something from the circuit but fundamentally a bulb blowing is no
different to a switch opening so the spike shouldn't be any different,
so it doesn't seem fair to blame the CB as such.

It is going to be something to do with the bulbs. Knowing you, you
prolly bough a job lot of cheap ones 20 years ago and they have dried
out ore something.

BTDT enjoyed it very much and don't need antibiotics but the glow is
wearing off. Roll on the summer.

 

Yup. Had nothing to do with excess current, did it?

Wanker.

I explained it in simpler terms but you had to go with a 230-word
explanation which said the same thing. Did you notice the "high current"
part? Probably not.

It's all voodoo to you, but British voodoo is more acceptable than American
voodoo, right?

doc

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, steve auvache

<G> Cheeky fucker. Philips' finest in this household, I'll have you
know. Anyway, I've finally got off my arse and JFGI and it seems that
it's a common issue. Even the NICEIC talk about it on their website.

File it under "One of them things".

<AOL> to that, brother Steve, <AOL> to that.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - There are few things in life more sinister than a
public toilet with the lid closed.

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha GTS1000

 

Wicked Uncle Nigel wrote

So far so good but now it gets dynamic.

You do have to ask yourself why this current should high? Especially as
we still have in place the resistive element that up until a fraction of
a second ago was the filament but now broken in two and the ends getting
farther apart from each other in an environment designed not to conduct
electricity by the nanosecond. I don't think this is the cause of the
'high' current but the parting of the ways and subsequent spark may be
the trigger. It is going to be this and something to do with phase
angles causing a small back emf sufficient to fool the CB. It maybe
that the spark allows the flow of current (albeit at a reduced rate) to
persist for long enough for this to be significant. I dunno. It'll
have something to do with zero crossing points though you can be certain
of that.

This is there for something else entirely. Depending on a lot of things
the support wires for the filament can melt/deform and touch, or short
bits of the broken filament can fall and bridge the gap. Nasty. This
fuse thing is there for that.

No you can't.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, steve auvache

VVVVVVV

<sits back, relaxes>

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - There are few things in life more sinister than a
public toilet with the lid closed.

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha GTS1000

 

Wicked Uncle Nigel wrote

How quaint. 100% cheap in the sales[1] energy savers for 15 years here.


[1] It's good it is as because you don't need them anywhere near so
often you needn't buy them until Tesco want to shift a box or three on
the quick to make room for easter eggs or something. I buy 100% 20watt
bulbs and then shift them around as they get dim. They end up in the
bog when they are putting out about 5W ten years later. Double the
saving.

 

Fucking priceless coming from a poster in a country which a helluva lot
of houses were wired in aluminium (aluminum) cable.

Aluminium cable is fine and dandy except for a couple of things...

It cracks.

It loosens off inside those horrible wirenuts.

Houses burn down.

Oh yes, and many houses with aluminium wiring are wooden.

LOL!

 

If British circuits are like other European circuits, then they operate at
220 volts or so. American circuits operate at half that. The increased
voltage of the European circuits means that the arc caused by a sudden
separation of the circuit will be longer (higher voltages can cross
increased air-gaps) and cause a momentary, but measurable, large flow of
current. Properly designed, implemented, and maintained, these circuits
should still follow the selective tripping characteristics that ALL
elecrical circuits should exhibit: the farther from the source, the sooner
it trips to preserve the rest of the circuit. In other words, a blown bulb
should never trip a circuit which provides power to other loads.

Now, WUN may or may not be the idiot who posted the original problem; I
don't care. But WUN wouldn't listen to sound electrical advice from someone
who actually knows how electrical circuits works, instead he tried a
subterfuge by saying that British circuits are different. They're not, as
far as electrical theory goes.

Here's your first clue, Wicked Uncle Nigel: All electrical systems in all
the countries of the world act the same. British, Chinese, American, or
Ugandese, they ALL follow the same rules. Being British doesn't exempt you
from Ohm's Law any more than my being American exempts me from Newton's
Laws. Deal with it.

Here's your second clue, Wicked Uncle Nigel: any circuit breaker that trips
is being subjected to elecrical current in excess of it's ability to
withstand.

Here's your third clue, son: The universally accepted interpretaion of
Ohm's Law is that the current in a circuit is directly proportional to the
applied voltage and inversely proportional to the resistance of the
circuit.

If that's too difficult for you to understand, than you have a problem. I
don't and neither does anyone else who understands electrical theory.

As I said before, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean you're
right.

I'll make this as simple as I can: Ohm's Law is the universally accepted
standard for electrical circuits: I=E/R. If you increase the voltage, you
increase the current for the same resistance. If you decrease the
resistance, you increase the current for the same voltage. Circuit breakers
operate on increased current, and don't care about voltage or resistance,
they only care about the heat produced in a circuit, which happens to be a
direct result of the amount of current. It gets complicated for people like
you who have no fucking idea about heat, amperage, enthalpy, or entropy,
but there are direct correlations. Most of those correlations were
discovered by Brits, so you don't have to take this Yank's word for it.

****, trying to educate a Brit in his own history is pretty tiring, so I'll
let you do your own research. Start with BTUs (British Thermal Units) and
go from there. You're an ignorant wanker and won't do it anyhow, so why
should I try to educate you?

I know that most Brits aren't as stupid as you.

But you'll get all kinds of support from this group because you ARE a Brit,
dumb as a stone though you are.

Best,
doc

 

You are misinformed. Most American housing is copper, just as yours is.

Aluminum is mostly used for high-tension wires to transmit power from a
generating station to sub-stations. Yes, the power losses are higher, but
the costs are lower and the strength of aluminum is higher than copper,
meaning over-all savings.

Besides, any new houses with aluminum wiring loses, what? 15% efficiency
compared to 20% savings?

Show me that my numbers are wrong for America.

Bullshit. We've been running aluminum wires from our local nuclear power
plant forty miles to the nearest company substation without a problem for
35 years. They've far surpassed the original lifetime estimate.

You're talking out your arse.

Well, maybe not, for the typical low-quality Brit crap that distinguishes
this group.

Bullshit, again. Everyone knows that electrical conductivity depends on
cross-sectional area. A properly connected wire-nut is no more inefficient
than a typically poorly-soldered English electrical joint, and probably
less so. In the decline of your Empire, you forgot to include pride of
engineering and manufacture, something the wogs had at a quarter the price.
But you aristocrats never understood that and never will.

Bye, bye, England!

doc

 

doc wrote

And twice the current, yes we can do the sums.

Explain to me how the addition of a spark gap in a circuit reduces the
resistance of that circuit. Unless it is to do with Impedance, which I
think it may be.

We don't do mixing lighting circuits with power feeds, safety reasons
and all that. Maybe this is why.

Oh rest assured, he is an idiot.

It appears they are or at least you seem to think so.

But they don't. The components within them do but the resultant system
acquires a synergy which will make each unique in some subtle way,
unexplained popping of circuit breakers in uk lighting circuits for
example.

Nor you, so I will ask the question again, how does the addition of a
gap in an electrical circuit reduce the resistance such that an
increased current will flow? Ohms Law, come on, it's a piece of piss.

Talk of lack of understanding, your basic and flawed grasp of
fundamental electrical theory is causing you to miss the point by a
mile.

I haven't got a clue what causes it but I do know it is not quite as
simple as V=IR if it were it would not be being discussed, as WUN points
out, in places where it is of quite a lot of importance and you would
expect a lot of knowledge, like a sparks newsgroup.

 

It doesn't. The resistance remains the same, but the potential difference
across the gap increases. Increasing the potential difference (the voltage)
means that you can jump a larger air-gap. That's why spark plugs operate at
15,000 volts instead of 12 volts or 6 volts. The circuit in engines uses
the principle known as inductive reaction: a small voltage combined with a
large resistance in the presence of an inductive field causes a spark. It's
complicated, but I can explain it if anyone wants. It's also why TVs work.

It gets more complicated in AC circuits, but--for those versed in DC
theory--I can explain that, too. Expect a little more than a few days,
though. And you'll have to do homework.

This is getting out of hand, but I'll gladly explain electrical theory,
thermodynamics, and nuclear physics to anyone who seriously cares. Those
are my areas of experise. If you doubt me, then pose a serious question in
any of those areas.

If not, then Wicked Uncle Nigel will happily PLONK! you, too.

doc

 

doc wrote

Don't be fucking stupid, the resistance cannot possibly remain the same.
Even your rather flawed model of the current leaping skywards requires a
related drop in the resistance. Mine the reverse.

To what? 110V over there or 240V over here?

Snot an air gap, it is a partial vacuum possibly filling with a plasma
made from evaporating tungsten. How many volts would you need to jump a
millimetre? Quick c'mon, gravity is accelerating the ends apart. And
**** nose what the explosion of very tips of the filament where the
spark is happening is doing to the direction it is moving off in.

It does doesn't it. It all changes with time. It is not the same from
one fraction of a second to the next and simple sums don't work like
they used to.

No need, I am happy with DC thanks. Mind you if you are in the mood for
explaining I would dearly love a simple explanation of the sums involved
in predicting boundary layer reattachment points at low Reynolds
numbers. I can't get my head round that at all.

I'll warm up me slide rule.

 

Of course it does, Steve, with the higher European voltage. How did the
distance between the electrodes change? You understand capacitors, right?

doc