What's the bet...... - ECN Electrical Forums

...that someone nearly had the life scared out of them when this occured:

[Linked Image]

Unreal!.

What happened to cause this?!

DAYUM!

dead short on a 220V plug????

That's a British 13A plug and twin switched socket, [receptacle], 230v, and a Breadmaking machine. Is this NZ? Oz?- That tiled and lipped countertop is rarely seen in Britain. Both plugs [caps] are not the 'factory-moulded' ones; it looks like the cover has separated from the plug body if you notice how much thicker the undamaged plug is. There's a fuse in the cap assembly, max 13A, so this has to have been bypassed if the short was in the cap. I've seen this sort of thing once before, but in that case the inner receptacle 'bus bar' strips linking the two outlets had been damaged to dead short by overenthusiastic slamming of the plug into the socket. Actually it was a friend of mine: he kicked the plug in with his boot when his wife said she couldn't use the Hoover! Boy, did he get a surprise!

Alan

Wauwww, must have been a good bang all right.

Alan is right, this is the 13 Amps U.K. plug used on the 240 Volts mains overthere.

Also the plug top is missing or was blown up, hopefully the one who plugged it in has all his fingers.

These sockets are quite often fed from a 30 Amps ringmains, so if no 13 Amp fuse was fitted in the plug a lot of power is available for a blowup as seen on these photo's.

At least they have a cool Phoenix motif on the wall now.

120 is good but 220 gives you even more bang for the buck.

Second look- it's a moulded plug, you can just see the tail of the moulding at the cord exit. The fuse in these is easy to bypass, prise-out the plastic cover and voila! room for a nice bit of 1/4" studding. This is a DIY kitchen, see the recep too close to the cold tap [faucet] and the poorly laid out tiling spacing at the window reveal.

Alan

[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 02-21-2006).]

Whoa!

That's some blackened area.

What's the odds on this being a house near a large xfmr with a very high PSCC? Probably an old rewireable 30A fuse for the ring as well.

Or maybe even the 30A fuse had been bypassed with a chunk of wire! [Linked Image]

Wow holy @#$%

From Alan Belson:

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Quote

A new [ Screwfix cheapo, £1.00 each ] BS 1363 double switched socket/ receptacle disected for critical examination. All the brass parts are loose, and locate simply between by the 2 bakelite mouldings in channels. At bottom of pic are the two switch contacts, removed for clarity. Hots to the left, neutrals to the right, note common N bus. Sprung shutter mechanisms: earth pins open the live/neutral shutters. In theory, parts cannot short, due to the back moulding locating the parts. In practice, a violent shock load applied to a shutter by a cap violently slammed in could break the moulding, disturb the switch blades or bend bus bars out of shape.....

......cool..

.and, the sink is right there, no need to haul water from 6' away to put the fire out

WOW!
You'd have thought the fuse protecting that socket would have blown open, NOT the socket itself!

Kicked the plug IN???? Temper temper!!
A.D

If the recep. bus bars get shorted, the plug fuse is not going to in the circuit. As Paul stated, a 30A rewirable fuse at the consumer unit takes time to blow.
BTW, I reassembled the recep. very quickly. All the parts drop neatly into the black moulding's slots, including the blades and rockers, then the white body slots over ready for the holding screws. I estimate the conductor bus clearances after assembly at just under 3/16" [4mm].

Alan

cool, I never seen inside one of those plugs before.