Travel Adaptors Full Time, bad idea?

Richard.H wrote:I am aware what a ring main and a spur is having spent 45yrs in the trade (not 12 months as a mate). The point being neither a spur or a radial circuit is illegal in the UK if you know what you’re doing.

You are ahead of me by 2 years so far but I haven't retired yet but you are correct

Richard.H wrote:I am aware what a ring main and a spur is having spent 45yrs in the trade (not 12 months as a mate). The point being neither a spur or a radial circuit is illegal in the UK if you know what you’re doing.

Yes. But you are drifting off the conversation and bringing in stuff that wasnt said. Let me clarify what we were talking about.

The point being made is a) In Spain they have multiple sockets daisy chained on spurs. You shouldnt do that, because the first bit of cable between the consumer unit and first sockets takes all the load. Not good. and b) certianly in this house, there are no ring mains, its all spurs. But this place is quite old, so i dont know if they do differently now

Hackerdude - ring mains are a very British thing, and most people agree that they are actually less safe than a correctly implemented radial system. This is because a normal ring main isn’t wired with cable that has sufficient current rating to serve all of the sockets on the ring. The system relies on the fact that the circuit is a ring, and that the current is load-balanced across both ends of the ring.
However, a break in the ring, which can occur very easily at the back of a socket, can result in excessive load across part of the circuit - depending on where the break occurs.

Spain doesn’t do things any differently now, it’s still all radial circuits and if you installed a U.K. style ring main you probably wouldn’t get an electrical safety certificate.

Probably best to stop digging this particular hole, and allow the thread to get back on topic.

Pete.

could some electrical knowledgeable person post a detailed picture/diagram of how to safely wire a uk plug , to a Spanish plug ,then we can all be safe ,thanks

GLASSMAN wrote:could some electrical knowledgeable person post a detailed picture/diagram of how to safely wire a uk plug , to a Spanish plug ,then we can all be safe ,thanks

The problem is that U.K. re-wireable plugs are basically al the same. Spanish re-wireable plugs are all different in design and the method of wiring them varies enormously.
I’d recommend buying plugs from somewhere other than a Chinese shop, as the quality of the Chinese one is often pretty poor.

Identify the earth connector in the Spanish plug, and if your appliance has an earth then connect it up. The Line and Neutral wires aren’t polarised the same as they are in the UK, so either if the two remaining wires can go to either of the two main pins.

The tricky bit is working-out how long each of the wires needs to be to allow the plug to be assembled correctly, and to avoid being damaged by the screw(s) that hold the plug together.
If you’re in any doubt at all, get someone who is suitably qualified to do it for you.

Pete.

thank you,

PeteKnight wrote:

GLASSMAN wrote:could some electrical knowledgeable person post a detailed picture/diagram of how to safely wire a uk plug , to a Spanish plug ,then we can all be safe ,thanks

Identify the earth connector in the Spanish plug, and if your appliance has an earth then connect it up. The Line and Neutral wires aren’t polarised the same as they are in the UK, so either if the two remaining wires can go to either of the two main pins.
Pete.

Just as an aside PeteKnight, we have LED ceiling and bedside wall light. We noticed that some of them still had a faint glow even after they were switched off, but not all of them. I discovered that if I swapped the live and neutral wires around they did not have this faint glow when switched off. Please do you have an explanation for this phenomenon?

LEDs will glow with quite a small voltage applied to them, and some types of LED bulbs are more prone to this than others. This my be why some glow and others don’t.
I’m guessing that you are either seeing some induced current in the wiring for the lighting circuit, caused by the wires being in close proximity to other live wires, or there an issue with the earth bonding, causing a potential between neutral and earth.

If it’s the latter (and it’s my my guess that it is) then you should get the wiring tested by someone with suitable test equipment (a ‘Megger’ type tester) to confirm that your earth resistance isn’t too high.

Pete.

How to wire a UK plug https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+ ... APxLKPEA25

How to wire a Spanish 2 pin plug https://www.spainbuddy.com/wiring-a-spanish-plug/