NY wrote
Rod Speed wrote

If you do get a short in the cable due to someone say
jamming the cable under the door etc the fuse or breaker
on the radial circuit will blow before anything catches fire.

Sadly in our house it is often the RCD for the whole house that fails
first if there's a live-neutral short (eg when my wife caught the cable in
the hedge trimmer), instead of the trimmer's plug fuse blowing. Having
*something* trip as fast as possible is what you want, but it would be
nice if the trip was as local as possible and affected as few other
devices as possible.

I don’t actually wreck a cable very often at all, even tho I do prefer
an electric chain saw just because it’s a lot less farting around with
one than having a motorised one stall when up a ladder etc.

No big deal given how rarely I chop up a cable and I have never
ever taken out any breaker or fuse anywhere in the process.

It is the local-blow effect of a fused plug which is the biggest advantage
that I can see for the UK system.

I don’t given how rarely any mishap blows any fuse.

If RCDs at each socket ever became cost-effective,

I have got an RCD protected plug in multi socket thing
that can be used on any device like an electric chainsaw.
But don’t bother to use it given how rarely I ever chop
up a cable.

that would be even better, with the circuit or house RCD being set to a
higher level so it only trips as a last restort.

Don’t see the need for RCDs at each socket myself, even if
they don’t add much to the cost of the socket and that isnt
going to happen given how simple sockets are without them.

On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 12:59:45 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

snip

I use the manufacturer's workshop manual myself, in pdf format.

I would too and do when I can find / afford them. As you say further
down, they are often produced by people with a copy of the genuine
manual and scanner and sold on the likes of ebay on a CD. ;-)

That works fine on the tablet. The iphone is a bit small screened for that.

I think you have to zoom, scroll and pan when viewing a .pdf whereas
if it was in 'Kindle format' as text you could set the fonts (at
least) to whatever you like.

Plenty of converters like Calibre.

Yeah, and I think you can eMail smaller
sizes of text to yourself or summat?

Yeah. Not just small sizes either,

Oh, I thought there was a size limit?

not reason you can't use
what book authors use to get their books into kindle format.

Calibre I'm assuming?

My biggest problem is that I get lots of books that I want
to read from garage/yard sales for peanuts and have never
been crude enough to chop the spines off with a ****ing
great hydraulic guillotine

I've got one of them and it will easily cut the spine off
a fat telephone directory. The blade is horribly sharp.

Yeah, that would work fine and is how the books are done
in the first place. I just cringe at destroying the books like that.

As do I, generally, however, as you say lower down, if that isn't done
they could just end up getting thrown away *before* they have been
converted into something more flexible, portable and storable. ;-(

snip

Same here ... it's quite a big decision to put
a book / manual under the knife like that

Yeah, tho with its more of a rather silly reservation in
many ways given that the books would otherwise lie
around the house in massive piles or be rather
expensively housed in proper bookshelves because
there is **** all market for them and whoever has
to dispose of them when I have died will most likely
have to dump them on the Salvos and Vinnies etc.

Googles Ah, the Salvation Army (of course) and 'St Vincent de Paul'
(that I don't think we have over here). I have heard 'The Salvation
Army' referred to as 'the Sally Army' over here (just as an
abbreviation, no slur on them) but I can imagine an Aussy saying
'Salvos'. ;-)

but with my thermal binder I can normally put them back
together again. But ho hum, if you want en electronic
version that is otherwise unavailable what can you do ...

Yeah, I have been tempted to try a DIY automatic page
turner with the book held say open at 60 degrees and
a decent high quality camera maybe with a robot and
an air pump to grab the pages but it's a lot of work.

I'm sure such has been invented by the Victorians and if not, 'Heath
Robinson'. ;-)

I still haven't got off my arse and done the kitchen
cupboards and benches in a format you can't buy.

I often find it amusing just how many people don't realise how much
effort some stuff takes.

A mate asked me if I could put a big mirror up in his newly uplifted
bathroom and I declined. Part of the reason (along with the thought of
the damage I could do if I dropped the mirror whilst fitting it or the
pipes / wires I might find with my drill etc) was the amount of tools
I would have to dig out, just to do the one job. Add to that the range
plugs or different sized and heads of screws and fasteners you might
need depending on what material is behind the tiles and it was just
going to be more than I was happy with, just to help a mate.

So, a 'builder;' would likely have all the required tools and material
on his van, insurance to cover any mistakes but I'm not sure if he
would have been as interested re using say stainless steel screws
because it was in a bath / shower room? Or not using countersunk
screws when round / pan heads would be the professional / optimal
solution?

Cheers, T i m

On 14/01/2016 00:20, T i m wrote:

My biggest problem is that I get lots of books that I want
to read from garage/yard sales for peanuts and have never
been crude enough to chop the spines off with a ****ing
great hydraulic guillotine

I've got one of them and it will easily cut the spine off a fat
telephone directory. The blade is horribly sharp.

I have to clamp them between bits of wood and run an electric planer along.
Most of the time you can find a pdf copy of a book but it may not be a
legal source.

In article ,
wrote:
On Wednesday, 13 January 2016 22:40:52 UTC, Rod Speed wrote:
NY wrote

I wish the bayonet blub had become a world standard,

I don't. I've never liked them much, its too easy to have cheap designs
that don't hold the bulb very solidly and are easy to damage because of
the way the metal retaining pins are held in the bulb holder.

because it is *much* less likely to corrode in place than the ES bulb,

Never had that problem with any of my ES bulbs and I do use them almost
everywhere because I prefer PAR38 bulbs.

the world's maddest bulb choice. AFAIK ES is the only system with enough
strength for those beasts.

How about GES?

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

In article , NY
wrote:
"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
If you do get a short in the cable due to someone say jamming the cable
under the door etc the fuse or breaker on the radial circuit will blow
before anything catches fire.

Sadly in our house it is often the RCD for the whole house that fails
first if there's a live-neutral short (eg when my wife caught the cable
in the hedge trimmer), instead of the trimmer's plug fuse blowing.
Having *something* trip as fast as possible is what you want, but it
would be nice if the trip was as local as possible and affected as few
other devices as possible.

That is the problem with "whole house" RCDs which were in favour in the
1980s (when I installed mine). Nowadays, partly because the price has
dropped (or at least not gone up) separate RCDs are preferred.

It is the local-blow effect of a fused plug which is the biggest
advantage that I can see for the UK system. If RCDs at each socket ever
became cost-effective, that would be even better, with the circuit or
house RCD being set to a higher level so it only trips as a last
restort.

You can get RCDs to wire in as extension lead plugs. They might trip
before thn master - but they might not.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

In article ,
Rod Speed wrote:


"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Rod Speed wrote:
Going back to that type of plug in the UK would be a retrograde
step - and how. We are fairly unique in having only the one plug
which covers pretty well all domestic requirements.

Bull****, we do too. And aren't stupid enough to have a fuse
in it, so modern fully molded cables are vastly more reliable.

Thanks for confirming you know less about UK 13 amps plugs than most
things. If that is possible.

You never could bull**** your way out of a wet paper bag.

Not bull**** - that's your speciality. Moulded on 13 amp plugs have been
around for many a year. They have access on the underside for the fuse.

No surprise that you needed a union to wipe your arse.

You'd never have been allowed to join my union. It was for skills only.

--
*A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
NY wrote:
Sadly in our house it is often the RCD for the whole house that fails
first if there's a live-neutral short (eg when my wife caught the cable
in the hedge trimmer), instead of the trimmer's plug fuse blowing.
Having *something* trip as fast as possible is what you want, but it
would be nice if the trip was as local as possible and affected as few
other devices as possible.

If there is space in your CU, you might be able to fit RCBOs to the rings
in place of the MCBs. Especially if a split load type and you move the
rings to the non RCD protected side.

--
*'ome is where you 'ang your @ *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Rod Speed wrote:

Your sig is sposed to have a line with just -- on it in front of it,
****wit.

It's two dashes (minus signs) and a space actually. I.e. '-- '

--
Chris Green
·

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Dave Plowman (News) wrote
Going back to that type of plug in the UK would be a retrograde step -
and how. We are fairly unique in having only the one plug which covers
pretty well all domestic requirements.

Bull****, we do too. And aren't stupid enough to have a fuse in it, so
modern fully molded cables are vastly more reliable.

The fact that cables/plugs are fully moulded doesn't imply that the plug is
unfused, which is what you seem to be saying. All plugs, whether moulded
onto the lead or separable with a lead that you wire in yourself, have a
fuse: the only difference is that the fuse is accessed from the inside
(after unscrewing the lid) in wireable plugs, whereas it's accessed from the
outside, on the side where the pins protrude, with a moulded plug.

On Thursday, 14 January 2016 02:10:01 UTC+1, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Rod Speed wrote:


Mike Tomlinson wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Yes, no one else did it that way and it turns out to be a much better
way to do without those now that fully moulded cables are now
almost universal and vastly more reliable than wired on plugs.

The fuse is there to protect the appliance cable

And it turns out that everywhere else doesn't
need the appliance cable protected.

You would need to make sure the appliance cord is capable of taking the
maximum current the radial can supply then. To have the same protection as
with a plug fuse.

Yup. 16A here.

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
The other obvious way to get electricity to bite
you is getting the toast out of a toaster when its
got jammed in the slots with a knife or a fork etc.

My dad fell foul of this with a toaster that had been wired wrongly: inside
the moulded plug, the live and neutral were teh wrong way round so the
thermostatic switch was in the neutral. Hence the element was permanently
live - as my dad found out when he used a metal knife to remove a bit of
toast. Luckily the knife was touching the earthed casing so there was just a
loud bang and he didn't get a shock. But he reported it to Trading Standards
who investigated the trader and confiscated a load of cheap Chinese imports
which all had the same fault.

Obviously he should have unplugged the toaster, but he forgot and *assumed*
that the switch would be in the live...

En el artículo , escribió:

It's two dashes (minus signs) and a space actually. I.e. '-- '

Another thing to add to the long list that Woddles knows SFA about.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=) Bunny says: Windows 10? Nein danke!
(")_(")

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
because it is *much* less likely to corrode in place than the ES bulb,

Never had that problem with any of my ES bulbs and I do
use them almost everywhere because I prefer PAR38 bulbs.

I've never had a bayonet bulb corrode in place, whereas I've had two ES ones
corrode in (*) - there's a lot of contact surface area in an ES, whereas the
socket of a BC is deliberately larger than the bulb and there's only point
contact on the lugs of the bayonet.

In both cases the glass snapped off the ES base as I was unscrewing the
bulb. In one case it didn't matter too much because it was a table lamp
which I could unplug before working on it, but the other was a
ceiling-mounted multi-bulb light fitting so I had to turn off all the house
lighting before it was safe to get out my pliers to try to unscrew the ES
base by tugging on the edge, and I had to reach upwards (**) to work on it.
It was welded firmly and I ended up having to bend the metal backwards in
towards the centre of the base (after gouging out the insulation), and
"peel" the metal off the fitting. It was a very long job because the two
surfaces of metal were stuck very firmly together everywhe I'm not sure
whether it was corroded or whether it was welded due to a massive short
inside the bulb.

That was an exceptional case, and I'll probably never encounter it again.


(*) And BC fittings are far more common than ES, so it was two failures out
of a much smaller total number of ES bulbs, and therefore a much higher
proportion.

(**) With hindsight it would have been easier to unscrew the light fitting
from the wires and the ceiling batten...

On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 10:15:37 +0000, dennis@home
wrote:



On 14/01/2016 00:20, T i m wrote:

My biggest problem is that I get lots of books that I want
to read from garage/yard sales for peanuts and have never
been crude enough to chop the spines off with a ****ing
great hydraulic guillotine

I've got one of them and it will easily cut the spine off a fat
telephone directory. The blade is horribly sharp.

I have to clamp them between bits of wood and run an electric planer along.

That's a nice d-i-y solution though. ;-)

Most of the time you can find a pdf copy of a book but it may not be a
legal source.

Quite.

But if you are talking truly light / portable / there when you want it
in the garage / workshop, I think a proper Kindle version would be a
real handy solution.

By that I mean you want something that would be there all day (or days
even, without charge), be light and easy to read. If it isn't, a real
Kindle version (rather than a PDF) would be scale / flowable.

So, now days I can't easily read the print on some manuals, (even the
HBOL) and being as I often only need to just 'overview' a job I've not
done before, would be able to do so easily and still go back and
review any steps I can't remember or don't seem to be as you though
from the manual.

I'm not sure how it would deal with any diagram that needed to be
bigger than full screen (that may have originally been A4 etc).

It would be using it in the same way as we saw things being used ITRW
on the likes of Star Trek, all those years ago.

Scotty, Capt'n, here the schematics for the modifications you asked
for on the aft plasma conduit hands Kirk tablet ... ;-)

Backlit, pinch-zoomable and scrolling, scalable fonts, WiFi and BT,
colour, battery life of a Kindle eReader, ruggedised and a 10th the
price of a 32G 10" iPad Air. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

In article , NY
wrote:
"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
because it is *much* less likely to corrode in place than the ES bulb,

Never had that problem with any of my ES bulbs and I do use them almost
everywhere because I prefer PAR38 bulbs.

I've never had a bayonet bulb corrode in place, whereas I've had two ES
ones corrode in (*) - there's a lot of contact surface area in an ES,
whereas the socket of a BC is deliberately larger than the bulb and
there's only point contact on the lugs of the bayonet.

I've had springs in a BC socket fail. Extremely irritating when it's
integral with the shade and it's one of a set.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

On Thursday, 14 January 2016 13:14:20 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Bull****, we do too. And aren't stupid enough to have a fuse in it, so
modern fully molded cables are vastly more reliable.

The fact that cables/plugs are fully moulded doesn't imply that the plug
is unfused, which is what you seem to be saying.
**All** plugs ... have a fuse

(Emphasis on "all" added by me..)

Nope. None of the plugs that plug into wall sockets at my home have a fuse
in them.

I think you have missed the fact that Rod is in Australia - which doesn't
use fused plugs. That distinction was rather his point.

(And for the record, I am in Germany.)

I have to say, I find this thread terribly disturbing. Rod seems to
be talking sense.

"Martin Bonner" wrote in message
...
On Thursday, 14 January 2016 13:14:20 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Bull****, we do too. And aren't stupid enough to have a fuse in it, so
modern fully molded cables are vastly more reliable.

The fact that cables/plugs are fully moulded doesn't imply that the plug
is unfused, which is what you seem to be saying.
**All** plugs ... have a fuse

(Emphasis on "all" added by me..)

Nope. None of the plugs that plug into wall sockets at my home have a
fuse
in them.

I think you have missed the fact that Rod is in Australia - which doesn't
use fused plugs. That distinction was rather his point.


Apologies. I misunderstood. I thought since it was a UK group people were
talking about UK plugs unless they specifically said otherwise.

I find the thread disturbing because it seems that the UK adheres to safety
standards that the rest of the world doesn't use. I'd rather thought that
all 240V countries, certainly western Europe and Aus/NZ, had fused plugs,
ring mains, BC bulbs etc, and that it was only 120V countries (and maybe
third world 240V ones) which had lesser standards.

Maybe many people find it more acceptable that I do that a faulty appliance
can trip the whole house (or at least the whole power-socket circuit for one
floor) instead of causing the least interruption possible.


As a matter of interest, with radial wiring, is it usual to have one cable
with multiple sockets (maybe all those in the same room) off it, or to have
a separate cable back to the MCB board for each socket? In other words, is
it effectively a ring main per floor, but without the final cable that
completes the loop back to the MSB?

Do any countries use different sockets for light and heavy current
appliances, or do they use a single socket which will take either a 2-pin
non-earthed low current plug or a 3-pin earthed high-current plug?

I know that the US uses 120V (one phase and neutral) sockets for normal
appliances and then higher voltage sockets (two phases) for high-current
appliances like cookers and tumble driers, though I believe that the latter
are hard-wired rather than plug and socket.

I was surprised that the fitted oven in my house was plugged into a 3-pin
plug (*) rather than being hard wired as you'd usually get with a cooker.
The wiring was hidden and I only saw it when I had to remove the oven from
the kitchen units to mop up a leak from the washing machine nearby. Maybe
the oven uses less than 13A whereas an electric cooker with rings and grill
as well would use more that 13A and so have to be hard-wired.

(*) On a special circuit controlled by a wall-mounted double-pole switch.

NY wrote:

As a matter of interest, with radial wiring, is it usual to have one cable
with multiple sockets (maybe all those in the same room) off it, or to have
a separate cable back to the MCB board for each socket? In other words, is
it effectively a ring main per floor, but without the final cable that
completes the loop back to the MSB?

In the UK, as I originally said, a radial on a 20 amp MCB can have any
reasonable number of sockets on it, the IEE recommendation is a
maximum floor area for a single circuit. Thus it doesn't have to be
limited to a single room or anything like that. It doesn't have to be
'one cable', it can be branched as needed.

In Europe the tendency seems to be to have a single MCB for each power
socket - at least the installations I have seen in France seem to be
that way.


--
Chris Green
·

wrote in message ...
NY wrote:

As a matter of interest, with radial wiring, is it usual to have one
cable
with multiple sockets (maybe all those in the same room) off it, or to
have
a separate cable back to the MCB board for each socket? In other words,
is
it effectively a ring main per floor, but without the final cable that
completes the loop back to the MSB?

In the UK, as I originally said, a radial on a 20 amp MCB can have any
reasonable number of sockets on it, the IEE recommendation is a
maximum floor area for a single circuit. Thus it doesn't have to be
limited to a single room or anything like that. It doesn't have to be
'one cable', it can be branched as needed.

In Europe the tendency seems to be to have a single MCB for each power
socket - at least the installations I have seen in France seem to be
that way.

The European way sounds like the closest you'll get to individually-fused
plugs, in that if an appliance develops a fault it will probably trip its
socket's MCB and not take out anything else. But it must use vast amounts of
cable and require enormous MCB boards, given maybe two or three double-gang
sockets in each of maybe four bedrooms, a living room, a dining room and a
kitchen. Plus the heavy-duty MCBs for cooker, shower etc, and the one(s) for
lighting circuits.

In article ,
NY wrote:
The European way sounds like the closest you'll get to
individually-fused plugs, in that if an appliance develops a fault it
will probably trip its socket's MCB and not take out anything else. But
it must use vast amounts of cable and require enormous MCB boards, given
maybe two or three double-gang sockets in each of maybe four bedrooms, a
living room, a dining room and a kitchen. Plus the heavy-duty MCBs for
cooker, shower etc, and the one(s) for lighting circuits.

If every socket in this medium sized Victorian house was on a radial run
back to a central fusebox with an MCB per socket outlet, it would need a
switch room the size of a bedroom. And all the walls would be thicker to
conceal the cables.

So either you seriously restrict the number of sockets - leading to a mess
of extension cables etc in practice - or you forget about this foreign
rubbish and be happy we have the best domestic solution in the world.

Anyone who thinks different is simply an idiot with no real life
experience of such things.

--
*It doesn't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Tim Streater wrote:
The 240V plug for my washer drier was much larger than anything here
and even uglier. It may have been a twist-lock, I can't remember.

I remember being supplied with some Harvey Hubble US 3 pin plugs for US
optical equipment, which was fed via a transformer. They looked like 1920s
UK plugs. Only not as well made.

--
*America is so advanced that even the chairs are electric.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
In article ,
NY wrote:
The European way sounds like the closest you'll get to
individually-fused plugs, in that if an appliance develops a fault it
will probably trip its socket's MCB and not take out anything else. But
it must use vast amounts of cable and require enormous MCB boards, given
maybe two or three double-gang sockets in each of maybe four bedrooms, a
living room, a dining room and a kitchen. Plus the heavy-duty MCBs for
cooker, shower etc, and the one(s) for lighting circuits.

If every socket in this medium sized Victorian house was on a radial run
back to a central fusebox with an MCB per socket outlet, it would need a
switch room the size of a bedroom. And all the walls would be thicker to
conceal the cables.

So either you seriously restrict the number of sockets - leading to a mess
of extension cables etc in practice - or you forget about this foreign
rubbish and be happy we have the best domestic solution in the world.

Radial is not, necessarily, one socket per MCB. I've been using it
here to mean 'not ring'. In general one 32 amp ring circuit could be
replaced by two 20 amp 'radial' circuits if one conforms to IEE
'conventional' circuits.

--
Chris Green
·

On Thursday, 14 January 2016 01:10:02 UTC, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Rod Speed wrote:

Going back to that type of plug in the UK would be a retrograde
step - and how. We are fairly unique in having only the one plug
which covers pretty well all domestic requirements.

Bull****, we do too. And aren't stupid enough to have a fuse
in it, so modern fully molded cables are vastly more reliable.

Thanks for confirming you know less about UK 13 amps plugs than most
things. If that is possible.

It's rod... what's new.


NT

On Thursday, 14 January 2016 02:15:54 UTC, Rod Speed wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Mike Tomlinson wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Yes, no one else did it that way and it turns out to be a much better
way to do without those now that fully moulded cables are now
almost universal and vastly more reliable than wired on plugs.

The fuse is there to protect the appliance cable

And it turns out that everywhere else doesn't
need the appliance cable protected.

You would need to make sure the appliance cord is capable
of taking the maximum current the radial can supply then.

Only in theory. In practice modern leads just don't fail
and those for the higher power stuff like fan heaters
and electric jugs and stuff like convection ovens and
microwaves do obviously have a cord capable of
taking the current the appliance uses.

To have the same protection as with a plug fuse.

In reality the fuse 'protects' the cable **** all of the time.

If you do get a short in the cable due to someone say
jamming the cable under the door etc the fuse or breaker
on the radial circuit will blow before anything catches fire.

Its only with higher powered rings
that that doesn't necessarily happen.

You can stop now, you've demonstrated your cluelessness enough times


NT

En el artículo , NY
escribió:

The fact that cables/plugs are fully moulded doesn't imply that the plug is
unfused, which is what you seem to be saying.

It's not that, Wodney is too stupid to realise what the fuse is for.
It's there for when you have an appliance plugged into a 32A ring
circuit with a flex designed to carry a maximum load of much less than
32A.

A fault in the appliance, not necessarily a full short, is going to pass
many amps through the flex, potentially causing a fire, without tripping
the breaker. The fuse in the plug is to guard against that; i.e. it's to
protect the appliance *flex*.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=) Bunny says: Windows 10? Nein danke!
(")_(")

En el artículo ,
Martin Bonner escribió:

Rod seems to
be talking sense.

Using PAR38 lamps for indoor lighting? Yeah, right...

--
(\_/)
(='.'=) Bunny says: Windows 10? Nein danke!
(")_(")

In message , Mike Tomlinson
writes
En el artículo ,
Martin Bonner escribió:

Rod seems to
be talking sense.

Using PAR38 lamps for indoor lighting? Yeah, right...


We had some PAR 38 lamps here, 4 x recessed spots in the bathroom
ceiling (ok pretty big bathroom, about 4mx4m).

Awful lighting :-)
--
Chris French

En el artículo , Chris French
escribió:

We had some PAR 38 lamps here, 4 x recessed spots in the bathroom
ceiling (ok pretty big bathroom, about 4mx4m).

That's about the only room they're suitable for.

Awful lighting :-)

Horribly inefficient too.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=) Bunny says: Windows 10? Nein danke!
(")_(")

T i m wrote
Rod Speed wrote

I use the manufacturer's workshop manual myself, in pdf format.

I would too and do when I can find / afford them. As you say further
down, they are often produced by people with a copy of the genuine
manual and scanner and sold on the likes of ebay on a CD. ;-)

Yeah, that's where I got mine.

That works fine on the tablet. The iphone is a bit small screened for
that.

I think you have to zoom, scroll and pan when viewing a .pdf

Really depends on how well the original was done, what is on each page.

whereas if it was in 'Kindle format' as text you
could set the fonts (at least) to whatever you like.

Plenty of converters like Calibre.

Yeah, and I think you can eMail smaller
sizes of text to yourself or summat?

Yeah. Not just small sizes either,

Oh, I thought there was a size limit?

Not for authors.

not reason you can't use what book authors
use to get their books into kindle format.

Calibre I'm assuming?

Nar, I meant what Amazon provides for
book authors when they want to epublish.

My biggest problem is that I get lots of books that I want
to read from garage/yard sales for peanuts and have never
been crude enough to chop the spines off with a ****ing
great hydraulic guillotine

I've got one of them and it will easily cut the spine off
a fat telephone directory. The blade is horribly sharp.

Yeah, that would work fine and is how the books are done
in the first place. I just cringe at destroying the books like that.

As do I, generally, however, as you say lower down, if that isn't done
they could just end up getting thrown away *before* they have been
converted into something more flexible, portable and storable. ;-(

Yeah, still makes me cringe tho, illogical I agree.

Same here ... it's quite a big decision to put
a book / manual under the knife like that

Yeah, tho with its more of a rather silly reservation in
many ways given that the books would otherwise lie
around the house in massive piles or be rather
expensively housed in proper bookshelves because
there is **** all market for them and whoever has
to dispose of them when I have died will most likely
have to dump them on the Salvos and Vinnies etc.

Googles Ah, the Salvation Army (of course) and 'St Vincent de Paul'
(that I don't think we have over here). I have heard 'The Salvation
Army' referred to as 'the Sally Army' over here (just as an
abbreviation, no slur on them) but I can imagine an Aussy saying
'Salvos'. ;-)

Think they call it that in Britain too.

but with my thermal binder I can normally put them back
together again. But ho hum, if you want en electronic
version that is otherwise unavailable what can you do ...

Yeah, I have been tempted to try a DIY automatic page
turner with the book held say open at 60 degrees and
a decent high quality camera maybe with a robot and
an air pump to grab the pages but it's a lot of work.

I'm sure such has been invented by the
Victorians and if not, 'Heath Robinson'. ;-)

Yeah, there are some on the net, new designs too.

Google has one they use for scanning physical books.

I still haven't got off my arse and done the kitchen
cupboards and benches in a format you can't buy.

I often find it amusing just how many people
don't realise how much effort some stuff takes.

Yeah, I designed and built my house on a bare block of land and
did almost all the work myself. Lot of work, but well worth it.

A mate asked me if I could put a big mirror up in his newly uplifted
bathroom and I declined. Part of the reason (along with the thought of
the damage I could do if I dropped the mirror whilst fitting it or the
pipes / wires I might find with my drill etc) was the amount of tools
I would have to dig out, just to do the one job. Add to that the range
plugs or different sized and heads of screws and fasteners you might
need depending on what material is behind the tiles and it was just
going to be more than I was happy with, just to help a mate.

I screwed mine to the inside of the bathroom sliding door.

So, a 'builder;' would likely have all the required tools and material
on his van, insurance to cover any mistakes but I'm not sure if he
would have been as interested re using say stainless steel screws
because it was in a bath / shower room? Or not using countersunk
screws when round / pan heads would be the professional / optimal
solution?

The screws of mine are hidden by the mirror which slides onto brackets.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
web.com...


On 14/01/2016 00:20, T i m wrote:

My biggest problem is that I get lots of books that I want
to read from garage/yard sales for peanuts and have never
been crude enough to chop the spines off with a ****ing
great hydraulic guillotine

I've got one of them and it will easily cut the spine off a fat
telephone directory. The blade is horribly sharp.

I have to clamp them between bits of wood and run an electric planer
along.
Most of the time you can find a pdf copy of a book but it may not be a
legal source.

And some of them are pretty poor scans, quite a few typos
and mangled formatting.

And even with someone as well known as Evelyn Waugh,
most of his fiction is easy to find in ebook format but none
of his other non fiction stuff is that I could find, for free.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Rod Speed wrote:


"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Rod Speed wrote:
Going back to that type of plug in the UK would be a retrograde
step - and how. We are fairly unique in having only the one plug
which covers pretty well all domestic requirements.

Bull****, we do too. And aren't stupid enough to have a fuse
in it, so modern fully molded cables are vastly more reliable.

Thanks for confirming you know less about UK 13 amps plugs than most
things. If that is possible.

You never could bull**** your way out of a wet paper bag.

Not bull****

Complete bull****, as always from you.

Moulded on 13 amp plugs have been around for many
a year. They have access on the underside for the fuse.

And are nothing even remotely like as reliable as fully
molded plugs that don’t have any fuse at all, because
there is no need for any replaceable fuse, ****wit.

NY wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Dave Plowman (News) wrote

Going back to that type of plug in the UK would be a retrograde step -
and how. We are fairly unique in having only the one plug which covers
pretty well all domestic requirements.

Bull****, we do too. And aren't stupid enough to have a fuse in it, so
modern fully molded cables are vastly more reliable.

The fact that cables/plugs are fully moulded doesn't imply that the plug
is unfused, which is what you seem to be saying.

No, I wasn’t saying that. I meant that a fully moulded
plug that doesn’t have a replaceable fuse in it is much
more reliable than one that allows the fuse to be replaced.

All plugs, whether moulded onto the lead or separable with a lead that you
wire in yourself, have a fuse: the only difference is that the fuse is
accessed from the inside (after unscrewing the lid) in wireable plugs,
whereas it's accessed from the outside, on the side where the pins
protrude, with a moulded plug.

And because the fuse can be replaced, aren't as
reliable as plugs which don’t have a fuse at all.

With a plug with a fuse, the lid can fail, what holds
the fuse can fail, the fuse itself can fail. None of that
can happen with a fully molded plug which doesn’t
have an internal fuse.

Martin Bonner wrote
Dave Plowman (News) wrote
Rod Speed wrote:
Mike Tomlinson wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Yes, no one else did it that way and it turns out to be a much better
way to do without those now that fully moulded cables are now
almost universal and vastly more reliable than wired on plugs.

The fuse is there to protect the appliance cable

And it turns out that everywhere else doesn't
need the appliance cable protected.

You would need to make sure the appliance cord is capable
of taking the maximum current the radial can supply then.

No, just the maximum current that a shorted cable can have.
That isnt necessarily the same as what the radial itself can supply.

To have the same protection as with a plug fuse.

Yup. 16A here.

Not necessarily. And there aren't many appliance cords
that can't take that anyway and even if the appliance
cord insulation does melt, that's no big deal with an
RCD protected radial. The only thing that would be
a significant problem is if the appliance cord actually
produces a flame with a short that doesn't blow the
radial fuse or breaker, and its much better to ensure
that doesn't happen with the plastic used in the
cord rather than a fuse in easy plug for that very
very rare event where the appliance cord itself
needs protecting.

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
NY wrote
All plugs, whether moulded onto the lead or separable with a lead that
you wire in yourself, have a fuse: the only difference is that the fuse
is accessed from the inside (after unscrewing the lid) in wireable plugs,
whereas it's accessed from the outside, on the side where the pins
protrude, with a moulded plug.

And because the fuse can be replaced, aren't as
reliable as plugs which don’t have a fuse at all.

With a plug with a fuse, the lid can fail, what holds
the fuse can fail, the fuse itself can fail. None of that
can happen with a fully molded plug which doesn’t
have an internal fuse.

All very valid points. Of these, the (intended) failure of the fuse (due to
equipment malfunction) is probably the most common - and even that is pretty
rare.

The only things in favour of individual fuses are that a) it *may* be easier
to replace a cartridge fuse in an appliance plug than to replace fuse wire
in a fuse box which may be fairly inaccessible; and b) if the appliance does
fail, it's better if the fuse which blows is one which only isolates that
appliance and not all the other appliances on the same circuit.

On the other hand, if the plug fuse fails when the plug is inaccessible (eg
above the stage during a theatrical production) then it's easier to change a
fuse in the lighting board, which is why when everyone else changed over to
square-pin fused plugs, theatres kept their unfused round-pin plugs for
stage lights.

NY wrote
Rod Speed wrote

because it is *much* less likely to corrode in place than the ES bulb,

Never had that problem with any of my ES bulbs and I do
use them almost everywhere because I prefer PAR38 bulbs.

I've never had a bayonet bulb corrode in place, whereas I've had two ES
ones corrode in (*) - there's a lot of contact surface area in an ES,
whereas the socket of a BC is deliberately larger than the bulb and
there's only point contact on the lugs of the bayonet.

In both cases the glass snapped off the ES base as I was unscrewing the
bulb. In one case it didn't matter too much because it was a table lamp
which I could unplug before working on it, but the other was a
ceiling-mounted multi-bulb light fitting so I had to turn off all the
house lighting before it was safe to get out my pliers to try to unscrew
the ES base by tugging on the edge, and I had to reach upwards (**) to
work on it. It was welded firmly and I ended up having to bend the metal
backwards in towards the centre of the base (after gouging out the
insulation), and "peel" the metal off the fitting. It was a very long job
because the two surfaces of metal were stuck very firmly together
everywhe I'm not sure whether it was corroded or whether it was welded
due to a massive short inside the bulb.

That was an exceptional case, and I'll probably never encounter it again.


(*) And BC fittings are far more common than ES, so it was two failures
out of a much smaller total number of ES bulbs, and therefore a much
higher proportion.

I've got the reverse, almost all of the bulb sockets are ES, never had
to replace even one and have had to replace one BS because the
metal the lugs go into wasn’t rigid enough so the tiny little end
thing past the lug ended up bent and didn’t hold the lug properly.

And I have 4 of them outside too, the they do have a proper rubber
ring between the PAR38 bulb base and the hard plastic surround
of the ES socket.

(**) With hindsight it would have been easier to unscrew the light fitting
from the wires and the ceiling batten...

Yeah, I'd normally do that just because a corroded ES socket makes
no sense to keep using once you get the old bulb stub out.

Mike Tomlinson wrote
Chris French wrote

We had some PAR 38 lamps here, 4 x recessed spots in the
bathroom ceiling (ok pretty big bathroom, about 4mx4m).

That's about the only room they're suitable for.

Even sillier and more pig ignorant than you usually manage.

Awful lighting :-)

Horribly inefficient too.

Who cares with a light ?

NY wrote
Martin Bonner wrote
NY wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Bull****, we do too. And aren't stupid enough to have a fuse in it, so
modern fully molded cables are vastly more reliable.

The fact that cables/plugs are fully moulded doesn't imply that the plug
is unfused, which is what you seem to be saying.
**All** plugs ... have a fuse

(Emphasis on "all" added by me..)

Nope. None of the plugs that plug into wall sockets at my home have a
fuse in them.

I think you have missed the fact that Rod is in Australia - which doesn't
use fused plugs. That distinction was rather his point.

Apologies. I misunderstood. I thought since it was a UK group people were
talking about UK plugs unless they specifically said otherwise.

I did say so explicitly but that got lost in the snipping.

I find the thread disturbing because it seems that the UK adheres to
safety standards that the rest of the world doesn't use.

In some ways it does, in others it doesn't. Britain does allow the
general public to do what isnt allowed in other places like Australia
which doesn't allow non licensed electricians to do any fixed wiring.

I'd rather thought that all 240V countries, certainly western Europe and
Aus/NZ, had fused plugs,

No, only Britain does of the majors.

ring mains,

While they are legally fine in many countrys, you
don't see them used much in houses. Its only
Britain where they are used much in houses.

BC bulbs etc,

Those are very common.

and that it was only 120V countries (and maybe third world 240V ones)
which had lesser standards.

That is very arguable indeed with the bulk of western
europe, particularly with places like Spain and Italy etc
and even France.

Maybe many people find it more acceptable that I do that a faulty
appliance can trip the whole house

That doesn't normally happen. There was a bit of that
at one time with single RCDs for the entire house but
even that isnt that common at all now.

(or at least the whole power-socket circuit for one floor)

And that just doesn't happen except with ring mains.

instead of causing the least interruption possible.

Its really not that vital given that you don't see the breaker
for a radial trip that often, and that is never the whole house
or even one level of a house. I don't even have just the one
radial for the entire kitchen, and all the other rooms have
more than one circuit.

As a matter of interest, with radial wiring, is it usual to have one cable
with multiple sockets (maybe all those in the same room) off it,

Yes.

or to have a separate cable back to the MCB board for each socket?

No, that never happens.

In other words, is it effectively a ring main per floor,

It isnt ever effectively a ring main at all, and its only
very old systems with only a tiny number of power
outlets that have just one circuit per floor.

but without the final cable that completes the loop back to the MSB?

The number of sockets you are allowed on
a radial is much lower than with a ring main.

Do any countries use different sockets for light and heavy current
appliances,

Yes, particularly with 110V systems.

We do have both 10A and 15A sockets but the 15A sockets are
only used for unusual heavy current appliances like those older
stick welders with a massive great iron cored transformer in them
and the bigger window airconditioners.

or do they use a single socket which will take either a 2-pin non-earthed
low current plug or a 3-pin earthed high-current plug?

Yes, that is the norm outside Britain. And that isnt determined
by the current, double insulated tools can be just as high current
as the ones which do have an earth lead. Although stuff like
shavers etc do normally use the 2 pin non earthed plug with
a 2 wire single level of insulation cord, what we call figure 8.

I know that the US uses 120V (one phase and neutral) sockets for normal
appliances and then higher voltage sockets (two phases) for high-current
appliances like cookers and tumble driers, though I believe that the
latter are hard-wired rather than plug and socket.

They can be plug and socketted.

I was surprised that the fitted oven in my house was plugged into a 3-pin
plug (*) rather than being hard wired as you'd usually get with a cooker.
The wiring was hidden and I only saw it when I had to remove the oven from
the kitchen units to mop up a leak from the washing machine nearby. Maybe
the oven uses less than 13A whereas an electric cooker with rings and
grill as well would use more that 13A and so have to be hard-wired.

My wall oven has two 10A elements, one for the oven itself and one for
the grill which is in a separate compartment to the oven, underneath it.

(*) On a special circuit controlled by a wall-mounted double-pole switch.

We don't normally have a wall mounted switch for ours.
Usually hard wired with its own circuit back to what you lot
call the consumer unit and we usually call the meter box etc.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
NY wrote:
The European way sounds like the closest you'll get to
individually-fused plugs, in that if an appliance develops a fault it
will probably trip its socket's MCB and not take out anything else. But
it must use vast amounts of cable and require enormous MCB boards, given
maybe two or three double-gang sockets in each of maybe four bedrooms, a
living room, a dining room and a kitchen. Plus the heavy-duty MCBs for
cooker, shower etc, and the one(s) for lighting circuits.

If every socket in this medium sized Victorian house was on a radial run
back to a central fusebox with an MCB per socket outlet, it would need a
switch room the size of a bedroom. And all the walls would be thicker to
conceal the cables.

So either you seriously restrict the number of sockets - leading to a mess
of extension cables etc in practice - or you forget about this foreign
rubbish and be happy we have the best domestic solution in the world.

Pigs arse you do when your fused plugs are unique and
that’s a massive problem now with so much made in china.

Even your use of ring mains isnt necessarily any better than
the obvious alternative of radials with a decent number
sockets on them.

Anyone who thinks different is simply an idiot with no real life
experience of such things.

You have no real life experience of how
well it works not bothering with fused plugs.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Tim Streater wrote:
The 240V plug for my washer drier was much larger than anything here
and even uglier. It may have been a twist-lock, I can't remember.

I remember being supplied with some Harvey Hubble US 3 pin plugs for US
optical equipment, which was fed via a transformer. They looked like 1920s
UK plugs. Only not as well made.

That was never true of DEC mini computers.

Mike Tomlinson wrote
NY wrote

The fact that cables/plugs are fully moulded doesn't imply
that the plug is unfused, which is what you seem to be saying.

It's not that, Wodney is too stupid to realise what the fuse is for.

We'll see...

It's there for when you have an appliance plugged into a 32A ring circuit
with a flex designed to carry a maximum load of much less than 32A.

A fuse in the plug isnt the only way to handle
that as the rest of the entire world has noticed.

A fault in the appliance, not necessarily
a full short, is going to pass many amps
through the flex, potentially causing a fire,

Makes a lot more sense to specify a cable that doesn't
catch fire in that situation than to have a fuse in every plug.

without tripping the breaker. The fuse in the plug is to
guard against that; i.e. it's to protect the appliance *flex*.

And it makes no sense to have the much higher cost of
a fuse in every plug to 'protect' what can just be scrapped
in the unusual event that there is a high current fault in the
appliance its connected to that doesn't trip the breaker or
burn itself out in the appliance.