I found there is a simple experiment anyone can do to determine if wire is directional!
All you need to compare is a yard or meter of a normal 18 gauge zip cord and the same length of a true ridiculously expensive audiophile cable.
Place both side by side on a wooden floor, laid out in a straight line. Now pull on each piece from one end. Note they both will slide nicely in a straight line. Now try and push each one from the same end. The zip cord will pretty much just scrunch up! A true properly designed audiophile cord will still slide in an almost straight line! Thus there is a difference in directionality!
😉 !!!!
All you need to compare is a yard or meter of a normal 18 gauge zip cord and the same length of a true ridiculously expensive audiophile cable.
Place both side by side on a wooden floor, laid out in a straight line. Now pull on each piece from one end. Note they both will slide nicely in a straight line. Now try and push each one from the same end. The zip cord will pretty much just scrunch up! A true properly designed audiophile cord will still slide in an almost straight line! Thus there is a difference in directionality!
😉 !!!!
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That's the memory effect of "reference" quality audiophile copper being proven ... much the same as aging ni-cad batteries could actually re-juvenate early DAC performance .... 👍
I never said they weren't good, I said we 'don't like them'. I'm rusty on the wiring regs these days so not sure if they are specfically allowed or not mind.
Had an interesting wire problem yesterday. At 5:05pm the earth leakage tripped in the house. Being an older house (and not mine) the fuses are not well labelled (biro on red insulating tape) but I got it down to one breaker that feeds 3 rooms across both floors. unplug everything and plug in one at a time until I find where the issue is. Interestingly came down to a shoddy piece of cable dressing on my part after I cleaned the fans on my NAS server. As ever a temporary hookup has remained in place and, over the last month the IEC in the back has worked a little loose. Somehow it got to a point that caused the trip. Re-seat, re-dress and all if fine, even if my ego is a little bruised.
I do think a 30mA trip on an 80A overhead feed is erring too far on the side of caution.
30 mA is lethal when you are the leakage path! Around here the design is to prevent killing people. The design may vary depending on where you formerly lived.
We now also use arc detecting and tripping circuit breakers in bedrooms. Apparently killing folks with smoke is also frowned upon!
We now also use arc detecting and tripping circuit breakers in bedrooms. Apparently killing folks with smoke is also frowned upon!
30mA per breaker with RCBOs is fine. 30mA for the whole house given the ground bounce that overhead power feeds can give I am still not sold on.
Why would you put a fuse box in the bedroom anyway? We put ours in a cupboard downstairs normally...
Why would you put a fuse box in the bedroom anyway? We put ours in a cupboard downstairs normally...
All the American motors with 6 or 9 wires we receive from US come with wire nuts. Never seen any terminal blocks for motors up to 20 HP. May be not allowed for house wiring as you stated. 3M still sells in US.
Regards.
I prefer a ground fault circuit interrupter’s current limit below 10 mA as that is a painful shock. However some folks seem to think anything below 100 mA won’t kill you. So a branch limit of much less than that makes sense.
Having a ground fault limit on the main to me, is not really useful in the way we in the U.S. are supposed to wire things.
However where you live historically a single main service was looped to the fused outlets. So allow for the usual code enforcement confusions I can see where a main service is mandated to have protection. Simplifies things and makes some cases silly, but still safe.
As to a fuse box in the bedroom, I thought we made it clear we were discussing circuit breakers! How you deliberately confuse things….!!!
😉
You are the one who said you use them 'in' bedrooms 😛
I will agree that the UK habit of ring mains can be confusing as you end up with more wires to squeeze into the breaker.* Really confusing in my hovel to find living room bedroom 1 and kitchen off one ring (or at least I hope it's a ring. Daren't take the cover plates off to see if the bedroom is a spur off the living room. Sockets upstairs are directly above sockets downstairs. Thank goodness I don't own this house. Mind the house was built before indoor plumbing was a thing let along pesky electricity.
*plus loop area considerations would drive JN mad 🙂
I will agree that the UK habit of ring mains can be confusing as you end up with more wires to squeeze into the breaker.* Really confusing in my hovel to find living room bedroom 1 and kitchen off one ring (or at least I hope it's a ring. Daren't take the cover plates off to see if the bedroom is a spur off the living room. Sockets upstairs are directly above sockets downstairs. Thank goodness I don't own this house. Mind the house was built before indoor plumbing was a thing let along pesky electricity.
*plus loop area considerations would drive JN mad 🙂
Bedroom CIRCUITS. The actual breaker is down cellar, or wherever, with the rest of them.
You have GFI/RCB like the US does. Do you have AFCI? These purport to detect arcing, as in a cheap US-spec plug which is melting due to bad contact. Actually what they detect is cheap plastic getting overheated and leaky, so are a specialized (3X the price) GFI.
With wood floors we hardly need GFI in bedrooms. However bedrooms attract multiple loads and cheap 6-way boxes. Also carpets and fluffy curtains and bed-throws. Many deadly fires have resulted in bedrooms. Most new construction or renovation involving bedrooms is supposed to be AFIC. This town has not adopted that code, but the next town has, and when I did a job there I pretty much used 80% AFIC breakers. They are equivalent to GFI in kitchen and basement, and the town was tired of bedroom electrical fires elsewhere so....
The problem with AFCI is that nearly all vacuum cleaners will false-trip them. Probably portable power tools too, but the Hoover is the big complaint. I won't have them here. I'm pretty obsessive about hot plugs. I did get a fuse-box which will take AFCI for the next owner's pleasure. (US fuseboxes are all proprietary, and the original fusebox is orphaned.)
Bill,
I wrote “we” not “I” referencing other folks on this side of the pond! Yes some folks do have circuit breaker boxes in the bedroom, not common but I have seen such. (Particularly in handicapped designed spaces.)
PRR,
This is normal friendly banter with Bill!
I wrote “we” not “I” referencing other folks on this side of the pond! Yes some folks do have circuit breaker boxes in the bedroom, not common but I have seen such. (Particularly in handicapped designed spaces.)
PRR,
This is normal friendly banter with Bill!
Also in very old construction in the US you will find odd implementations like fuseboxes in bedroom closets. Electric codes go back a long way but electrification goes back further. For example no outlets in the kitchen or bedroom, just ceiling lights in early 20th century apartments. The landlord did not want pesky tenants using electrical stuff. Too dangerous.
You mean, moreso...
Ahem...just finished up mods to a spreadsheet, 1300 rows, 35 columns. Had to modify it because of extensive changes requested to the "stuff".
No links to source data, just cut and paste. If a change affects 700 rows, they cut and paste 700 times!!! instead of doing it right the first time with "heaven forbid", links.. Need all the 535 mcm cables blue? poof, done.
4500 cells I put links into this time, so when they change their mind again, I got it covered.. .sheesh
So, mad??? already there.
Jn
Tis actually not too bad. Mind numbing, yes. But at the end of the day, I have much better feeling for the machine.
The bad thing is, 1200 cables is only about 1/3rd of the magnet system, and about 1/6th of all the wires needed. They do not have one person in charge of the design, but several people in each group kinda group designing, and multiple people trying to understand code apparently without talking to one another.
It is far better to have one person responsible for all the wires in the machine. I did that for ours, 17K wires. Granted, it was scary to be responsible for the whole thing and the main sheet had 1.5 million cells, but it worked perfectly...sigh, all that education and all I was needed for is an excel spreadsheet that a high schooler can do. At least they would push a tray of food through the gap at the bottom of the door 3 times a day.. difficult with the mask, and they never gave me my fava beans or chianti.
And the voices I heard throughout the effort (that oddly nobody else heard) have started to diminish. Now they talk to me only in my sleep..
Planet10....as I said, my stained glass is far less about talent, and all patience. Did you get my email?
John
The bad thing is, 1200 cables is only about 1/3rd of the magnet system, and about 1/6th of all the wires needed. They do not have one person in charge of the design, but several people in each group kinda group designing, and multiple people trying to understand code apparently without talking to one another.
It is far better to have one person responsible for all the wires in the machine. I did that for ours, 17K wires. Granted, it was scary to be responsible for the whole thing and the main sheet had 1.5 million cells, but it worked perfectly...sigh, all that education and all I was needed for is an excel spreadsheet that a high schooler can do. At least they would push a tray of food through the gap at the bottom of the door 3 times a day.. difficult with the mask, and they never gave me my fava beans or chianti.
And the voices I heard throughout the effort (that oddly nobody else heard) have started to diminish. Now they talk to me only in my sleep..
Planet10....as I said, my stained glass is far less about talent, and all patience. Did you get my email?
John
OMG! Did you buy my old house??
FWIW, my parents' apartment had the same setup. Dad could not find the fuses and called the manager. Take all your stuff out of the left side of the closet, there it was. As you say, severely frowned-upon today.
I always loved the Bugs Bunny cartoons where the lightning would chase Marvin up and down the stairs, through halls, and wait patiently outside the closet for Marvin to open the door, then zap!!!
When I read through code, it almost feels like the code writers were Bugs Bunny fans..
Yes, I know it's based on cumulative knowledge and experience...but ya know, it still feels Bugs Bunnyish...
John
When I read through code, it almost feels like the code writers were Bugs Bunny fans..
Yes, I know it's based on cumulative knowledge and experience...but ya know, it still feels Bugs Bunnyish...
John
I happen to know the back story on those arrows. It started as a valid engineering effort. For a low level signal conductor pair inside a shield you would want the shield connected in a way that any energy it picks up is not shared with the audio return, so you would connect the shield with the audio ground at the end away from the signal source. Add an arrow to indicate the direction of the signal and implement the shield connection at the destination. In audio land very few bits of valid engineering go unpunished. . .