Thread: power sockets

spargs
When I purchased my arc welder which came with the 15 amp plug I was loathe to file the earth pin down (As my old dad used to do :eek: ) in case of a warranty claim, so I made up a small extension cord with a 15 amp female and a 10 amp male plug.
I hope this helps!

Bad bad idea filing down the earth pin. The reason they have the larger pin is to STOP them being used in a 10 amp circuit. A welder running at 15 amps on a 10amp circuit will blow it continually. If you then put a 15 amp circuit breaker in the line instead of the 10 amp one you can melt your wiring.


If you are going to use both the welder and the compressor at the same time then I would suggest that you have two separate 15 amp circuits. Yes, I know it will cost more, maybe even a lot more but the rest of your house will still be safe.

I generally have no problems with mucking about with my own wiring etc, in fact I rewired my own house, but when I needed a couple of 15 amp outlets I put up the main wiring myself, connected up the outlets and fixed it to the beams, but I then got a sparky to inspect it all and connect the lot into the main circuit board with their own circuit breakers.

All nice and legal, all nice and safe.

Just had a electrition check the wiring in my shed as I wired it up myself. They only thing I did wrong is only run a 20amp line from the power box. He recommeds a 6mm line, 30 amp from memory and a clipsal saftey switch in the shed breaker box as well, because there is a quiet alot of load when you have lights dust extractor and saw etc all running at once. If you add it up eg mig 15 amp, lights, saw its well over the 20amp limit. Saved a small fortune doing it myself but always pays to get checked. Like the electrition kept telling my if your houses burns down and the insurance find wrong wiring they wipe there hands and are left with no nothing.

bye goldy

recently (5 months ago) wired up my new shed and with the great help and supervision of my tame electrician mate installed 13 double sockets and 1 single 15amp socket and loads of strip lighting.

According to him the only requirement of a 15 amp feed is that it is a single feed ie that it is the only socket on the cable leading directly from the board we used standard 20 amp cable. We also installed RCD on both the GPO's and the 15 amp line.

My thicknesser has a 3hp motor and obviously needs a 15 amp feed. but the smallish jointer I have has a 1 hp motor and also has a 15 amp plug, that apparently makes no sense so we filed down the plug.

It is quite correct that if wiring is found to be an amateur installation resulting in a fire that insurance companies will take a very dim view and at the least reduce the claim value. Licensed electricians carry (or should carry) indemnity insurance, which in the event of their negligence will cover any loss. As a recently reformed (thank heavens) insurance assessor, I know this for a fact

Incidentally having recently built a house (and shed) of all the trades people we had to deal with the electricians were the most argumentative, awkward and incapable of keeping appointments. On arrival the first job they do is look at the main board and say “who the hell did the work to this your not allowed to do that……… etc” there seem to be many different ideas about what is acceptable within the trade.

Cheers Dave

Just as a point when installing cableing for electricity its not just a matter of saying I'll put in a couple of 15 amp circuits. you actully have to calculate the maximum demand that will be on the submain and this is based on the number of powerpoints and circuits and also the the types. eg 10 amp, 15 amp, 20 amp etc.

Bob
A 10 amp circuit uses the same cable as a 15 amp point and a 20 amp point which is 2.5mm2. the only difference is depending on the number of circuits you can have up to 20 points on a 10 amp circuit providing ther is more than one 10 amp circuit but you can only have one 15 amp point or one 20 amp point on a single circuit.

2.5mm2 cable can be protected by a 20amp circuit breaker but only by a 16 amp hard wired fuse.

Goldy
6mm2 cable can only be protected by a 32 amp circuit breaker.

So where does all this come from? Purchase a copy of the Australian Standard AS3000 SAA Wiring Rules.

This is a book of over 400 pages which is not any easy book to read and one of the reasons why the average person is not allowed to do his own wiring and electricians are licenced. Remember one FLASH :eek: and you are ASH:eek:

There are standards which govern electrical work. These standards are not concrete and consequently the same type of circuit can be wired different ways. This does not mean that the different ways are not safe, so if one sparky says it is wrong it may just be different to his preference but still within the standards.
I am a sparky and pride myself on being punctual although customers should realise that when dealing with renovations or upgrades to existing structures, unforseen events can occurr and timings are difficult to follow.
15 Amp circuits are used for a reason and if an appliance has a fifteen amp plug it should only be used on a 15 amp circuit.
I call it elecTRICKERY and it still bamboozles me some of the time so if you are not qualified stay well away.
It is difficult to give a rough price without seeing the job to be done and I am in Brisbane anyway, my quote for travel would be enormous!!

BTW, if you are going to wire it yourself and get a sparky to connect it it would be a good idea to tee this up with your sparky before hand.

Barry White is correct about maximum demand and you may have to upgrade your consumer mains accordingly, once again, check with a qualified and LICENSED sparky.

For those of that don't know, electrickery runs on smoke, once you let the smoke out it doesn't work anymore, He he he!!

I once saw a guy at a show selling welders. Between customers he was making illegal and dangerous 10 amp to 15 amp adaptor leads so people could use their new 15 amp welders at home on a normal circuit. I wonder if he is in jail or dead. The fines for illegal wiring work are very high.

I recently went through the process of getting my workshop wired properly for all the power tools that I'd acumulated over the past few years.

Prior to that, I'd been running everything from one double ganged 10 amp outlet. :eek:

I now have 10 10amp outlets and 1 15amp plus all the lighting that I could want and it was all done by a licensed electrician.

My house was bulit in the '20's and the wiring is a mixture of original (ie crap) and new. I already had a seprate circuit that was only being used to run a pool pump so there was plenty of scope for him to use this circuit.

The sparky sugested that it would be a good idea to have a safety switch installed on the main board while he was doing the work and as I have a healthy regard for electricity I had no problem with that.

The point of the story is though, that after he'd installed the switch, he found that it was continually tripping. Investigation found that we had no functioning earth :eek: :eek:

Now we have an earth cable that I can see going down the outside of the wall and it's connected to a water pipe in the laundry, the problem was that it was just not connected to the board.

So if I'd decided to do the wiring myself, there is no way I'd have known about this serious deficiency in the wiring.

So do yourself a favour and get a licensed electrician to do the work.

Cheers
Craig

I think I sounded too harsh in my previous post re electricians, once they get to the site and have established there territory they are nearly always good blokes. After all crawling around in a roof space on a 38 deg day under a tin roof with fiber glass insulation sticking to your sweat is not something I'd be too keen on doing.

Interesting that Australia is quite peculiar in it's attitude towards safety with electricity, Personally I agree that installing power point wiring, lighting circuits and especially installing a new main, circuit board and wiring to a building should be regulated and performed by a licensed electrician. But changing a plug, installing a light fitting, or even changing a smashed or broken power point is over regulation IMO.

In the US and UK (and other countries no doubt) these things are acceptable. That doesn?t mean that you aren't responsible for your errors though.

Cheers Dave

In the US and UK (and other countries no doubt) these things are acceptable

Don't open that can of worms again... :eek:

Hahahaha......... was waiting for that

Originally Posted by Jack E

I once saw a guy at a show selling welders. Between customers he was making illegal and dangerous 10 amp to 15 amp adaptor leads so people could use their new 15 amp welders at home on a normal circuit. I wonder if he is in jail or dead. The fines for illegal wiring work are very high.

Scene in a jail, Bubba doing the rounds and asking all the new guys how come there in jail.
Ohh Im in for murder.
Im a rapeist.
Im a child molester.
And what about you?
Who me? I made some electric lead adapters.

Cheers, Bubba

Spargs,

If your worried about how much a new 15 Amp line is going to cost to be installed by a qualified electrician, ask yourself how much is your life worth? or that of your spouse or kids?

Insurance be buggered, someone could get killed if it's done wrong!

I am guilty of changing my own power outlets, light fittings etc., but would never consider installing a new run, I would rather get a licensed sparky to do it.

As for the clown making up the converter leads, well I for one would have turned him in.

Himzo.

Spargs,

To answer your question, I recently had a 15 amp circuit installed and it cost me $230.

Mine was installed on the other side of the wall where the power box/meter is, which I believe makes it a little cheaper having it closer to the box (less wire to run or something like that).

I ran a 240V 140Amp welder with a filed down plug for years. Not by choice, I used to do a lot of site work and not many places had 15 amp sockets. If you crank up the amps and run 3.25 mm rods you will trip a breaker. If you run 2.5 mm rods you will have no trouble. Can't say about the compressor.

Dan