Good morning,
I hope some of you can help me on a matter regarding the Australian market:

is the 15A outlet common in Australian homes, especially in kitchens?
(at least in new houses...)

I'm working on a kitchen lighting system with double outlet unit, and for using a 3x1,5mm cable to connect it, we only get a 15A plug from cordset suppliers.
So I'm wondering if an AUstralian customer that buys this article can connect it in his kitchen without having to rewire it...

Thanks in advance to anyuone who may help me!
Annabella

Hi there Annabella,
Welcome to ECN.
I can't speak for Australia, but we use the same plug configuration here in New Zealand.
Lighting and socket-outlet circuits here are derived from 2 seperate circuits, sure lamps could be plugged into the wall socket in a Lounge here.
Over here, the use of a 1.5mm2 cable to supply a 15A circuit would be frowned upon and the minimum here would be 2.5mm2.
Although a length of 1.5mm2 will carry 15A, if it was of any great length, it would overheat because of voltage drop.
Hope this helps.
By the way,
Here is a 15A double switched socket-outlet, and yes we do require switches on our sockets here.


[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 10-01-2005).]

Hi Annabella,

Welcome to ECN.


I take it that's in reference to the fixed cables feeding from panel to outlet though?

Wouldn't you have 1.5 for the appliance cord?

I took it from Annabella's post that she's referring to the latter, i.e. a cord for connecting her design of lighting to the outlet.

I'm not sure if the question is asking if 15A GPO's are common for domestic use because the 15A plug (or is it a moulded plug plus flex?) is all Annabella can obtain. I would have thought the 10A plug would be alot easier to get. Is it because it's assumed 1.5mm cable is required? .75mm should be adequate for any sort of domestic portable light...is a 10A plug available with .75mm?
The answer to the original question is generally no. Inside a house the only likely place you see them is for an air conditioner. In a garage or workshop you might see one for a welder, but for run of the mill domestic appliances, 10A GPO's are standard.
The 10A plug will fit a 15A socket but not the other way round.



[This message has been edited by aussie240 (edited 10-01-2005).]

Doubt that. According to the formulae of the European harmonised standards 1,5mm2 is good for around 12m on a 16A circuit regarding the voltage drop. Prior to the hrarmonised standards Germany used to disregard voltage drop at all and fused any length of 1,5mm2 with 16A... Austria was a lot more conservative on that. 1,5 always was max. 10, later 12A here (and still is if using fuses or older circuit breakers with H, L or U trip characteristics).

Welcome to the boards you're our first member from Italy!

Hi again,
first of thanks for your answers, and also for the warm welcome - I'm really proud to be the first Italian in this board!

To answer Pauluk and aussie240, I try to explain better the product I'm working on: it's a kitchen undercabinet lighting system, and we have 3 connectable units: 2x10 halogen unit, 3x10 halogen, and a double socket unit, that you can connect to the lamps, but it has its own class I cordset with plug (while the lights have their own cordset, class II). This means that if you put the outlet unit between 2 lamps, it has internal wires that can carry the power from one lamp to the other, but the current for the outlets is given only by the unit's own cord, that is bigger than the lamps cord.
It's not so easy to explain, but I hope you could understand more or less how it works...otherwise I'll send a picture when I'm back at office!

So, for giving power only to the 2 outlets, we used a 1,5mm2 cordset with a 15A plug, but it seems that customers can't connect it so easily in their kitchens...but I'm wondering if we can have a 10A plug+cord to give power to the double outlet unit, will it be enough to keep a certain safety margin? Probably to have a 10A plug, we'll have to go for 1mm2 cord or smaller, what do you think?
I haven't seen cordest with 1,5mm2 cable and 10A plug...

ciao to all!
annabella

You have to consider this double outlet unit as a multisocket with cordset (I don't know the exact name for it...)

I don't see why not given 4 way power boards are sold like that. The lighting load is a fraction of 10A anyway so I wouldn't think it's an issue.

Boy,
Did I mis-read this!!.
I thought this was a permanently wired thingy.
My apologies folks.

sounds like a softwiring system, are the halogens on a proprietary plug that is designed to fit into the supply transformer only?

If the QI are 50w units (typical in aus), with 5 lamps, then you got plenty of margin in a 10a circuit.

The only diminishing issue would be the heat build up from the halogens themselves and attendant fire risk.

Spock