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Could one of the sparkies explain why its dangerous to run such a small amount of power through a powerboard? I have read the thread again and cant see any reason why there could be a problem.
 
I agree cris if you read my 1st post I explain the loading on the power board and the possible ramifications. To use the analogy, it may be OK to walk across the road "NOT at the Pedestrian Crossing" most of the time ALL of us & cross safely...but many people get hit by cars crossing the road & "NOT at Pedestrian Crossings". No one can ever say that it wont happen and it would be silly to offer advice to anyone, where a proven hazzard does exist!
This example is the same mate..I agree with you BUT and wont admit that stacking and piggy backing power boards may be OK, BUT there are those cases where it cuases fires and would be irresponsible to say "Yeh go ahead and do it" without taking into consideration ALL the variables hat may make this practice a risk!...I'm sure you understand that and I hope that MY advice is not as silly as some we get on the site, as we want to get GOOD advice instead of crap...correct>?
Cheers mate... :)
 
As long as it is under 2400 watts or 10 Amps you will be fine.
 
kensai said:
As long as it is under 2400 watts or 10 Amps you will be fine.
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As stated earlier in the thread... Fires are rarely the result of overloading the circuit. More often than not its the result of a bad connection and more oftern than not it involves power boards and double adapters. There is circuit protection for overload. There is no protection for bad connections and faulty equipment....
So to say everything is fine as long as you don't overload the circuit is not very good advise.
 
cris said:
Could one of the sparkies explain why its dangerous to run such a small amount of power through a powerboard? I have read the thread again and cant see any reason why there could be a problem.
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Again it's not the volume of power it the connections that make it more of a risk.
 
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In days past there would not be a real problem doing this but unfortunately these days power boards are coming out of China with a compliance plate but they are very low quality and don't actually comply. I have had them overheat at well below the 10 amp load and have had burning and melting of the plastic occur at the outlets. Even the cheap extension cords from China can be felt to be quite warm with even a moderate load. Fortunately my boards were running in a monitored situation. I wouldn't trust them to be left on while I was away these days. Get a sparky to come and fit power points where you need them. Better safe than sorry. You may find that cascading power boards in the event of a fire may void your household insurance as well.
 
Sound advice throughout Snowman and thank you for steering the thread in the direction it needed to go.
 
Snowman said:
Just to cover myself Chris..
Safety switches DO NOT stop fires. They wont even stop you from getting electrocuted between active and neutral. All they do is trip with 30mA of leackage to earth. So in theory if you and active touches the a metal earthed frame of a flouro light fitting it will trip the breaker.
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You have given some great advice snowman, but i need to pull you up on one thing which is incorrect....sorry to split hairs...lol That statement is NOT entirely true. An RCD (residual current device) or ELCB (earth leakage circuit breaker), works by detecting a "leaked curent" or to be more technical a "difference in potential" of 30mA or more (depending on the setting of the said device) between the active OR Neutral conductor to earth..... EARTH is you! ie if you were to touch either the active OR neutral conductor and there is a "difference in potential" it will trip the RCD. :)
There are definitely ways to get an electric shock through appliances etc with the correct circuit protection installed, but they are way more complex than the debate at hand. BTW no one uses 16A for power circuits anymore and haven't for as long as I can remember. 2.5mm twin+E cable is rated at 25A and is a minimum sized cable to be used as per A/NZ Standards, although it is required that a CB of no more than 20A be used, why would you use a 16A Breaker on a power circuit, we don't even use 16A on light circuits anymore??
 
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I just watched that you tube video and I do agree what a twit, BUT it does show you exactly what I said in one of my previous posts "high resistance joints"...that is one and you saw the ramifications...
 
Not sure what you're getting at Southside Morelia? Your above explanation is correct. I was merely giving a single example in simple terms of what can trip an RCD. Any leakage is considered to earth in laymans terms. Whether it's via a human or any other conductor. If it's not going to earth where is the difference in potential? I'm a licensed special class A grade (E) in both Victoria and Western Australia at present, and to get your a grade, as you well know you have to draw and explain how an RCD works....
As for 16A breakers... Everyone who is reading this have a look at your switchboard and see if you have 16A breakers for your power circuits? It's still VERY common to use them. As you stated the breaker can be no more than 20A, hence making 16A a safe option that reduces risk of overloading when Joe Blow sticks 40 power boards together to run his dope crop. Plenty of people install 20A as well but 16A is more common in "my" experience. I've been a sparky for 14 years and I'm still learning. I knew early on that I wanted to be more than a house basher....
 
Snowman said:
Not sure what you're getting at Southside Morelia? Your above explanation is correct. I was merely giving a single example in simple terms of what can trip an RCD. Any leakage is considered to earth in laymans terms. Whether it's via a human or any other conductor. If it's not going to earth where is the difference in potential? I'm a licensed special class A grade (E) in both Victoria and Western Australia at present, and to get your a grade, as you well know you have to draw and explain how an RCD works....
As for 16A breakers... Everyone who is reading this have a look at your switchboard and see if you have 16A breakers for your power circuits? It's still VERY common to use them. As you stated the breaker can be no more than 20A, hence making 16A a safe option that reduces risk of overloading when Joe Blow sticks 40 power boards together to run his dope crop. Plenty of people install 20A as well but 16A is more common in "my" experience. I've been a sparky for 14 years and I'm still learning. I knew early on that I wanted to be more than a house basher....
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I feel you read my post incorrectly OR I apologize for giving you a negative vibe, not intentional my friend and your posts were informative to say the least...Thanks for that...although I was splitting hairs as I initially said.. :) I live in a different state to you and possibly the trend in other states may be different, that I cannot answer. I was asking a question on the breaker size as that is perplexing to me, as in NSW we don't ever use 16A breakers. REASON: they are the same price as 20A's and as you correctly pointed out 16A limit your power load, meaning you need to have more circuits to compensate for the lower maximum demand on the circuit..... which in turn increases your costs for the installation of more circuits, means more cable, more breakers, bigger switchboards, which in turn could mean the difference to winning or losing a tender for a big project! Every job that we tender for, or work on, specs 20A minimum CB's for lights and power & 2.5mm minimum conductor size...that's the facts here in NSW snowman and I was generally inquisitive with your rationality on the 16A breakers, which again may be common place in your state.
At least we can agree on something, we are the smartest and usually the better looking out of all the tradies... hey Snowman? ;) ... Just a sledge to all the plumbers, & chippies out there!!!!...that's along running construction joke! LOL ;)
 
Our C/Bs are rated at 16 amps except the stove circuit which is 20 amp. As far as conductor size goes isn't 2.5mm for power circuits and 1.5mm for light circuits?
 
Ramsayi said:
Our C/Bs are rated at 16 amps except the stove circuit which is 20 amp. As far as conductor size goes isn't 2.5mm for power circuits and 1.5mm for light circuits?
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LOL I had the feeling i'd be proven wrong, although I do know that MANY houses when the switchboards were upgraded from semi-rewirable fuses to Circuit Breakers 15+ years ago, have 16A breakers installed, we even did that as well!...LMAO...
But seriously in all "NEW" residential installations that we work on, they are as i have mentioned. As far a conductor size, you are correct Rams, BUT as I said before, there are many reasons we UP the conductor size on lighting circuits and this is to reduce costs having extra circuits, breakers and bigger switchboard sizes...ie the more circuits the more breakers more cable and bigger the boards to fit the extra breakers in. With a 20A circuit you can put more lights on it, it is unlimited in certain situations, I don't have the SAA wiring rules beside me to quote the rule...lol
My Company doesn't do do 'domestic" houses, I do residential projects consisting of 250 apartments or more...so you can imagine if you project the costs of a CB here, Load Centre there...extra cable and labour to rough in and fit this all off.....it does add up substantially.
Thats just the way it is, even if it don't make sense to some, it does to us winning or losing a potential $4M contract. FYI light circuits used to be wired in 1mm cable not all that long ago and they increased that to 1.5mm minimum conductor size...I bet my left **t, 1.5mm will be phased out as lighting cable soon as was 1mm. JMO... :)
 
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Southside Morelia said:
FYI light circuits used to be wired in 1mm cable not all that long ago and they increased that to 1.5mm minimum conductor size...I bet my left **t, 1.5mm will be phased out as lighting cable soon as was 1mm. JMO... :)
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I've been out of the game for longer than I care to remember however going by my foggy memory 1.5mm cable was used for the light circuit except for switch wires which were 1mm cable.

I would of thought that having a lower rated breaker/fuse would be safer in that it would trip well before the cable overheated/melted,caught fire, in built redundancy.
 
Cheers SM. I thought you were having a dig. So now I appologise if my reply was harsh. LOL ;)
If I remember correctly a 20A breaker means you can have as many outlets as you want on that circuit. I don't do domestic anymore other than an occasional house for family members. But it doesn't get much simpler than house wiring. I can see your point with winning contracts etc and how it impacts your selection of materials.
And yes we are the best looking and smartest tradies ;) Though I'd probably lie about that when there is a 200kg Maori concreter standing infront of me ;)
 
Snowman said:
If I remember correctly a 20A breaker means you can have as many outlets as you want on that circuit.
And yes we are the best looking and smartest tradies ;) Though I'd probably lie about that when there is a 200kg Maori concreter standing infront of me ;)
Click to expand...
That's correct Snowman and the reason we use 20A breakers, same with lighting as well if you use 2.5mm cable.....
Cheers mate, take care!!
Tired of arguing electrics, this is a herp site...LOL
 
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