ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades If BS1363 has to go !

Actually I have another proposal:

Why not go for something like BS546 but with an ability to accept the standard Europlug..

Slightly recess the outlet so that schuko/french plugs can't make contact.

And make one "hole" slightly larger than the other, so that 2 pin Europlugs could be polarised.

Plugman,

South Africa stayed with BS546 on radials and did indeed uprate them to 16A. They are used on all standard power circuits, irrespective of load, i.e. a 40W table lamp!

The 5A plugs are rare and used mainly on lighting circuits which do have an OCP at 10A in general.

It's a good solid system.

DJK - now there's a roundabout thought!

It's often occurred to me that had we kept BS546, the 5A outlets could have been conveniently wired on 10A radial circuits. The IEE Regs. actually allowed them to be on a branch rated up to 15A maximum.

Perhaps we could have standardized on a variation of the design which incorporated an extra pair of holes to take 2-pin 5A plugs as well, such as was found on some adapters, then equipment not requiring a ground could have still been fitted withe the more compact 2-pin plugs. With careful design, the Continental plug would also have been catered for, as with the design on the typical Euro/British socket on shaver outlets.

The French/Danish/Schuko compatibility would have been a problem though.

Guys,
I'm not pushing a Aus/NZ barrow, but what is wrong with Radial circuits and a "loop-in" method of reticulating socket-outlets, provided that these are supplied via 20A MCB's or 16A MCB's, as the cable size and Voltage Drop allows?.

Nothing at all wrong with it!

When I talk about radial circuits, I'm including any sort of star topography as well as a single cable looping to each socket in turn. Basically, the same arrangement as found in the U.S., Canada, most of Europe, and the rest of the world outside of the U.K.

Re. pauluk's comments about 'BS546' sockets that combined 2pin and 3pin holes ~
Check-out this site (They are for the Indian standard, but still basically BS546):-
www.anchor-world.com

Why does my disk drive make a noise when I enter that site? I'm serious!

I don't know what they have in their web code, but for some reason loading it seems to be trying to access drive A:

Anyway here are a couple of images: