ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades VDE vs. OVE

The kitchen foil trick used to be quite common here as a means of bypassing plug fuses.

13A fuses tended to blow too frequently on large 220V appliences like some heaters and tumble dryers as they were designed to be connected to a 16A circuit and were pushing the 13A fuse beyond its melting point.

Ireland had an option of 16A plugs and used 220V so a lot of heating appliences were intended for European rather than UK market so would simply overload BS1363 plugs.

Overloading the socket with 15-16A would tend to discolour the socket's face plate where the pins had overheated.

The correct sollution in this case was to install a VDE/Schuko socket on a normal 16-20A radial circuit or where rings exsisted to connect it to a ring via a spur fused with a 16A neozed fuse.

At least now with the 230V being the nominal standard across Europe appliences seem to all be designed only require 13Amps.

UK, Ireland, Malta, Cyprus all use BS1363 13A plugs
and Denmark uses its own plug rated at 13A.

How do you connect a heavy applience in Switzerland? They seem to only specify 10A max.


[This message has been edited by djk (edited 11-10-2003).]

You use 400V 3-ph or the new Swiss 16A socket.

I didn't realise there was one

Is that just the same as the old one, recessed triangle with schuko style pins?

Same but with squarish pins 4 x 5 mm