"Jeff McGhie" wrote in message .. .
"Stefek Zaba" wrote in message
...
Andrew Gabriel wrote:

By the way, an interesting excersise is to work out what the
safest order of cable pulling out is on a trailing socket...

I've always reasoned it's the same as for a plug: live shortest, so that
a yank will cut power (and prompt investigation), neutral slightly
longer, and E with a loop so that any casing etc. stays earthed
"longest". I s'pose you could argue swapping the lengths of N and L, so
that a "small" yank will provoke investigation (thing stops working, L
still reaches but E continuity still in place).

Surely having Love as the shortest on a socket wouldn't be a good idea as a
'yank' would leave a live end floating around, possibly outside the casing ?
From memory on most trailing sockets, Earth is the shortest, possibly
relying (nowadays) on the fault tripping the RCD ?

There might not be any other fault and a missing earth alone will not
trip the RCD. I would rather discover the fault through having the
Live disconnect than wait to test the RCD (*if* there is one) when a
real fault occurs.

MBQ