Indeed - just looked that up myself.
Looks very much like an email to the manufacturers might be in order to see what they have to say.
I would be interested in their response.
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Indeed - just looked that up myself.
Looks very much like an email to the manufacturers might be in order to see what they have to say.
Case proved I think for the fuse protecting the cable, if it is only rated 6 Amps then a 5A fuse should be fitted. In fact you might even get away with fitting a 3A one. Here's food for thought but albeit a bit OT, many manufacturers recommend a 13A fuse for appliances using the 3 pin IEC connector. The cable fitted is usually substantial yet the connector itself is only rated at 10 Amps. It would be an interesting court case if an IEC connector manufacturer was blamed for a fire from an appliance fused at 13A. Of course the scenario is unlikely to happen but what about today's risk assessment and hazard analysis we design engineers have to suffer all the time. LOL!
Les
My partner has a pair of xxxxx hair straighteners. I have a query on the fuse rating for this product. It says on the plug that it is fitted with a 13amp fuse (which indeed it has) and also states in the manual that it is to be fitted with a 13amp fuse.
The rating plate on the product says the product is rated at 35watts, 220-240 volts at 50Hz.
I have tested these and see an initial peak of 600 watts settling down to around 65 watts after one minute of heating up.
The cable is marked 2 x 0.75 which appears to be 0.75mm2 mains cable which is rated at 6amps maximum.
Could you verify that using a 13 amp fuse on a 35 watt product with mains cable which is only rated at 6 amps is safe to use please ? We are currently discussing this on an electronics forum and the general feeling is that a 5 amp fuse should be fitted.
Many thanks
Dom
Hi Eric, I understand your concerns but that is how it is nowadays, probably due to the almost wide spread use of the IEC connector. If you designed some equipment to run on 5A say, you MUST employ some kind of protective device inside the equipment as otherwise someone could connect another IEC cable fitted with a higher fuse i.e.13A. I work with some of the most knowledgeable persons in product safety and they all stipulate that the fuse in the plug is only there to protect the cable feeding the appliance. Like a lot of modern rules, they do appear to be rather stupid at times but nonetheless they are there so the best thing to do is, if no appliance protection is fitted, is to fuse at the rating stated on the plate of the appliance. I do that myself but it does not alter the foregoing about appliance cable size and fuse. In that respect I am just the messenger boy, please hold your fire!
Thank you for your email.
I passed your email on to our test Engineer, please see below for his reply:-
Under normal use there is no overload of the cable.
A 3A fuse is not fitted because of the possibility of the switch-on current may cause it to blow prematurely.
There are two preferred values of fuse 3A and 13A in the fuse standard. Therefore the alternative 13A fuse is fitted. The standard for plugs refers to the fitting of a 13A fuse for 0.75mm² cable during the testing of plugs.
There are two possible failure modes for the product, either it becomes open circuit which is not a problem for the fuse or cable, or, there is a short circuit in which case the fuse blows very quickly and the cable is protected.
Hope this is information is sufficient and helpful.
Yours Sincerely
Good engineering practice is to have a fuse no larger than the appliance requires. If something shorts, you don't want more current flowing than necessary. And if you get a high resistance short you could be dissipating a large amount of power without blowing the fuse. 13A (3,100W) for a 35W appliance is total overkill. If there's a concern about surge current, use a slo-blo fuse.
The IEE regulations would advise against using a 13A fruse for 0.75mm² cable.
I can see why he didn't use a 3A fuse but I don't understand why he didn't use a 5A fuse, perhaps the surge current would still be too high.
There are also 7A and 10A fuses available for domestic UK mains plugs.