On shaving plugs and fuses

[torkell]

Amongst other things I bought a new shaver today, and plugged it in to charge. Whereupon I found that the connection in the shaver adapter was a bit loose, and I couldn't get the plug balanced right (this shaver came with a mains adaptor in the shaver plug, and I then plugged that into an adaptor to make it fit a UK socket).

So, I unplugged it all and unscrweed the shaver adaptor, meaning to adjust the contacts with a handy pair of pliers (turned out one was bent out of shape). And I decided to get them out to make it easier to get at. This required removing the fuse.

Fuses in the UK have to conform to one of the various standards, which IIRC amongst other things requires them to be filled with sand and I think be in cermaic cases.

This does not mean in a glass tube with loose end caps, as it turned out this plug used. I seriously doubt that conforms to BS646. I now need to buy myself a new fuse, as I will not be using that. Those have a tendency to go with a bang.

Worst thing is is that I think that was an off-the-shelf plug, and that was the fuse it came with.

Comments

[pteppic.livejournal.com]

Glass and wire fuses are ususally time delay fuses and used internally on electronics to protect against surges from PSUs.

Strange that a standard plug should have one in. And yes, they go *bang* and *flash*. I have much experience with this.

[13th-einherjar.livejournal.com]

Sounds like my apartment. For one summer, we had the circuit breaker turning off literally every few days until it broke for good. Turned out the refrigerator had shorted. We got a new refrigerator, and it broke in a few months. 3rd refrigerator isn't so bad, but the circuit breaker is still pretty hard to turn back on once it switches off (it remembers...). Not to mention running 2 air conditions with only one line that supports them, and still not managing to cool the entire apartment.