Hi there Guys,
A few weekends back, I was sent on an Officers course with the New Zealand Fire Service.
With the course being over a full weekend and also being 100km away in Christchurch, it necessitated that I stay in a motel.
Before leaving on the Sunday evening, I thought I'd grab a few pics of the electrical stuff in the unit, for your perusal.

First off, we have a shot of the switch-board in the unit, there is only the one RCD (GFCI) and that protects the hair-dryer in the Bathroom.



Next up, it's the hair-dryer that has the RCD all to itself:



Here's the Mirror light, this one didn't actually work, this is an incandescent fitting and by the looks of things, the bulb has seen better days.



The obligatory International shaver socket, these are usually supplied from a nearby lighting circuit here.



Here's a picture of how the bedside lamp and alarm clock were connected, but see in the pictures, how the wires are run through the bedside unit.

By the way, I only noticed that emery board and the hair salon card on the bedside table when I went to edit these pictures, I have no idea how they got there, the key is mine though.
Spooky!.



[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 07-11-2006).]

Here is the Permanent connection unit that supplies an IR heater over the window to the left.
Sorry but the pic of the actual heater never came out to well.



Here are the pics that were missing from my original post:







Ok that's all I think!.

{Edit: Small typo.}

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 10-27-2004).]

Nice pictures.

I dislike:
-The flex cable connections on the bottom pictures. Very unusual here. Shall this protect from stealing desk lamps etc?

-Breakers with the "on" position downwards! Never seen that in europe.

Why Shavers only?

Mike,

That seems like a lot of circuits for one motel room! Especially considering everything is at 240 volts.

Peter

The electrical aside I think your room key is most intriguing. Looks like a skeleton key from what I can see and they went out here in the states around what, 1900?
In fact most hotels here now issue a programmed card as the room key.

Neat stuff

That seems typical. At least your outlets were in reach. At the hotels my old job could afford, I usually had to move the bed to plug in my laptop. I don't have that problem with this job; the hotel rooms have outlets mounted above the desk surface.

Anyway, the cords for the clock radio and bedside lamp always seemed to just barely reach.

James

[Edited to add]
I double-checked. What outlets, everything in your room was hard wired! Where do you plug in the hot plate?

[This message has been edited by WiseOwl (edited 10-27-2004).]

Mike, it looks like a nice, clean room

Is that "Federal" company connected with our beloved "Federal" in the States?

OK, discounting the emery board and card, did you have to drag a trailer behind your car to carry all of your reading material??

That's not his room key.... that's for his truck. Mike's PROBABLY gonna have to update one day soon. , but you know how them Kiwi's are.

Cuz it's on a 20VA isolation transformer.

OK, so I _can_ plug in my cheapo Chinese mains-operated transistorradio so I can listen to music while I wash up!!!

Add to the fact that it uses a two flat-pin plug, and we're in business...

Those upside-down breakers do look funny. In fact at first glance I thought you'd turned them all off to take the photo, and was wondering why!

Contrary to our usual practice of light switches being down for on, circuit-breakers are most always up for on here. The only exceptions I've ever seen are the old-style main earth-leakage breakers intended for domestic use up to about the 1960s, which used up for off.

They sure like hard-wired appliances there, don't they?

Hi there Guys,
Sorry I haven't responded earlier, but it's hard to use a computer that has no HDD.
Andy, I think everything was hard-wired in here because of the theft factor, but then again I suppose it also prevents kids from poking things into sockets, which removes a certain amount of liability on the part of the moteliers.
Having said that, the TV actually did have a plug on it, now, which would you sooner steal, the bedside lamp or the TV?.
Kent, BTW, that's my house key for at home here.
No need to bring anything like that to these flash digs, WiseOwl, the unit features it's own Free-standing range!.
I was wondering about them breakers myself, there does seem to be a lot of them for such a small unit, but it has it's own Hot Water cylinder, an electric fan heater, a range.
BTW, the Residual Current Device pictured, is actually called an RCBO, meaning that it has a Thermal/Magnetic trip mechanism in it as well, like a normal CB.
Electure, The Breakers are Federal branded, but just above the actual Federal marking on the breakers you can just make out a small 'N', this stands for Nilsen, I'm not sure how these 2 companies became associated.
Paul, These breakers do look a little wierd withe the toggles pointing downward in the on position, as all our other brands of breakers over here, point upward in the on position.

Sorry, I missed these bits.
Would a US razor have a ground pin on the plug?.
Ours have one, but only a 2 Core curly flex.
I suppose it saves us plugging into the wrong voltage on these sockets, though.
A 110V shave probably wouldn't be the most comfortable experience!.
Actually Scott, this was not the course that I was led to believe it was, I thought we'd be learning "real" things like Fire-ground control and other important such things.
But no, this was an exercise in "Team-building" and yes, I nearly had to hire a truck to bring all the written material home after that one.
Mind you, who pulls a set of books out while some guys house is on fire?.
Kent,
There were 2 sockets in the kitchen, one for the underbench fridge and another single point to plug the supplied electric kettle from.
I must say, the coffee in this place was amazing, I drank the place dry!. (Of coffee I mean).
By the way, am I using the correct term here, as in Bathroom?, I know that you guys in the US use the term for a Toilet room don't you?.

No. Neither do British shavers with their round-pin plugs.

Why? I know Aus/NZ plugs come in 2-pin versions with no ground pin as I've seen them, and it's not like the British 13A plug where the ground pin is needed to open the shutter mechanism. I can't see any advantage to using a 3-pin plug.

Paul,
On any Aus/NZ plug the Neutral pin actually opens the access to the Phase and Neutral contacts on a socket here.

Hi Trumpy,

All the shavers and hair-clippers I've seen sold in the Western hemisphere (110-volt countries) use two-wire flex with a two pin plug.

Some of them use wall-warts (AC/DC adapters) instead of regular power cords.

Trumpy, couple things.
In the states we use the term bathroom unless the room just had a toilet in it...then we might call it a toilet room.
OK, just what is an electric kettle????? Is it an electric perculator coffee pot? Here all this time I thought you guy's just drank tea.

Electric kettle is an electric teapot.

A kettle, with a heating element at the bottom...you use it to simply boil water.

Great Call Sven,
I couldn't have said it any better!.

The traditional British electric kettle, seen here in a 1960's advertisement:



A current production version of the traditional-style kettle:



And a modern "jug-style" kettle of the type which has become very common in recent years:



Well, making tea is probably the most common use of the kettle, hence the fact that no British kitchen is complete without one! As a coffee drinker, my kettle is very under-used compared to most here!


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 11-06-2004).]

The Federal breakers with the 'on is down' set-up is also here in Australia. I only saw my first set of these about three weeks ago when I was installing smoke detectors & had to drop the power off for the lighting circuit. Bit of a trap if you aren't expecting the brekers to be backwards compared to other manufacturers'.
The cracking around the two switch mechanisms for the bedside light & radio are caused by the faceplates being done up too tightly.More of a cosmetic thing (no chance of the mechanisms coming out the front of the plate).
Are the shaver outlet & the heater switch PDL brand fittings?. PDL gear is starting to appear over here more often in new instalations.
Another thing I have come across in motels is the use of power outlets with round earth pins on the fridge & clock outlets (all other outlets are normal 3 pin flat outlets controlled by the keytag switch to save energy). Bit of a pain if you want to leave something on in your room & take the keys out of the switch.

Yeah...yeah... Spooky indeed! Worried the wife reads yer posts???

LOL. Good pics tho, what a set-up!

Just for grins I did a Google on Electric Kettles in the UK. What a different world it would be to have 20A/240V convenience outlets in the kitchen. They make these kettles in a 3000 watt version! I guess it must heat your tea water in a heart beat.

In the interests of science (who am I kidding? ) I just filled my jug-style kettle to the maximum mark and timed it.

Starting from cold, with exactly 3 Imperial pints of water (that's 3.6 U.S. pints) it took 5 mins. 25 secs. to boil and switch off.

That's with a 2.2kW element. I didn't bother to measure the starting water temperature, but apparently across England it comes out the underground pipes at a fairly constant 50 degrees.

If that's the case, and using rough figures, I make that about 85 - 90% efficiency.

By my reckoning, a 3kW version running at similar efficiency would have taken just a shade over 4 minutes.



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 11-07-2004).]

 
Paul — I want one of those “12-volt Car Kettles.” {And we all thought cell phones were distracting…}

Bjarney, I've seen those 12 volt kettles at Truckstop America truckstops. Not only that but 12-volt DC ovens, stoves, refrigerators, frying pans, etc. etc.

What does va mean ? is it equal to amp or watt? and whats an isolationn transformer?

VA = Volt Amp. Watts = Volt x Amperes, so picture it this way (Volt)(Amp) gives you (V)(A). Now remove the parenthesis and you have VA. Another term for Watt.

Isolation transformer means the primary and secondary coils are electrically isolated from each other.

There are some transformers where the primary and secondary share a common connection.

Yes Sven and there are different ideas on using them too.
Commonly called an Auto-Transformer down here in the Antipodes.
The nasty thing about these Tranny's is, is that if they are used to lower the secondary voltage too far, there becomes a problem of Over-Voltage should the Primary and Secondary short together.
For that reason, Under the NZ Electrical Regs, the A-Transformer is not allowed to effect a voltage variation greater than 10%.
Apart from in Distribution applications, meaning lines work, Overhead or Underground

I can't help but reply to this one.
I can't but help but think there's a song in that!.
{Steamy Windows}, er sorry.

Don't drink & drive -- You'll spill your tea!

The 12V car kettles I've seen draw about 20A, and therefore take quite a while to boil even a small amount of water. I tried one once, and was sitting there for what seemed like ages -- With the engine running for fear of being left with a dead battery.

Re the 20VA isolation transformer, the wiring rules in Britain state that the only socket (receptacle) allowed in a bathroom is a shaver outlet fed through such a transformer. Shaver outlets have the transformer fitted right on the plate and are fitted into a depper-than-normal box.