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Rob Philpott wrote: I don't really get any of these things. Here in the UK every plug has a fuse in it, every plug has three pins (not always used for 'double insulated' appliances) and a punchy 240v flows through those terminals.
I know what you mean. I lived in Britain for just under 6 months. I remember the plugs were entirely different from what we have in the US. I needed to buy an array of plug adapters designed for multiple types of plugs for various foreign countries. That allowed me to operate my electrical devices. I don't know if the adapters changed the volts and amps of the outlet's electricity, but I assume they did. Otherwise, I suspect my electronic devices would short-circuit and die.
In the US, the standard power for residential applications is 120 volts and 15 amps. Multiplied together, these give us 1800 watts. It's an alternating current that cycles 60 times per second.
I know in the UK, 240 volts is the standard, but I've long forgotten how many amps there are. I assume that the current cycles are 60 times per second, but I don't know. I'll have to Google that.
Here's a link: England residential electricity volts amps cycles - Google Search[^]
This is one of the results that popped up. Sounds as though it's correct.
A standard UK plug socket typically supplies electricity at 230 volts AC and up to 13 amps. Strictly speaking, 32A if fed via a ring main or 20A if fed from a radial circuit. The plug is the limiting factor, not the socket. Plugtops (the correct term) are fitted with a maximum of a 13A fuse.Sep 28, 2017
One of the search results stated that in the UK, AC electrical current cycles at 30 times per second.
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Steve Raw wrote: I don't know if the adapters changed the volts and amps of the outlet's electricity, but I assume they did.
A lot of newer electronic devices with (built-in) semiconductor based power supplies can handle anything from 100 to 250 V. So you charge your smartphone, plug in your portable radio etc. They work fine; you think that it will work fine with any sort of equipment, and plug in something that does not have any built-in regulator, or one based on a transformer, and it goes Pooof!.
If your adapter plug appears to be nothing more than a plug with a "US style" socket, and an English (or other) plug, with no apparent "box" for electronics or a small transformer, do not assume that it converts 240V to 120V! You can get small transformers; they are marked with the in and out voltages and maximum effect. I have got one transformer bases, it is rated for 50 W, and one semiconductor based, rated for 1000 W. Neither can handle plugs with a ground pin, on either side. (Since all new houses, and major upgrades to the electric cabling of older houses, are all grounded, so both my adapters are now useless!)
I know in the UK, 240 volts is the standard, but I've long forgotten how many amps there are. The actual current, in amps, depends on the consuming apparatus. The rating of the plug, socket or cable is the maximum load, determined essentially by the cable dimension. 1.5 sqmm conductors can handle 10A, and the central fuse box has a 10A fuse. 2.5 sqmm conductors can handle 16A, with a 16A fuse in the box. For 25A, for electric stoves, 4 sqmm cable is used. Nowadays, the fuses are electronic, but in old houses you can still see those ceramic screw-in fuses: Fuses for higher currents has a wider throat, so a 16A fuse will not fit in a 10A socket. In Norway, the old standard was 1.5 sqmm cables, for a max load of 10A. The last 25-30 years (? I am not sure when the change came about), 2.5 sqmm, 16 A, became the standard.
The socket/plug must also be capable of handling the maximum load. In most of Europe, using "Schuko" plugs, all of it is made to handle 16A. For higher effects, there are special plugs, often for three-phase power.
GB is a little by itself, with its mammoth plugs and built-in fuse, and "ring circuits" which are unheard of in the rest of Europe. The fuse is usually 3, 5 or 13A. As standard voltage in GB is 240V, but 230V in the rest of Europe, the difference in power handling (240V * 13A = 3120, vs. 230V * 16A = 3680) isn't that much different from GB to the rest of Europe.
Note that a lot of apparatus, especially motorized stuff, have fuses to keep the motor from burning off in case of overload. It is a lot cheaper to replace a fuse than to replace the motor! The size of this fuse is set to what the motor can handle, which is usually a lot lower than the max rating for the cable (such as 13 or 16A).
One of the search results stated that in the UK, AC electrical current cycles at 30 times per second. All of Europe, including GB, uses 50 Hz AC. Nowadays, all of Europe is perfectly synchronized; they all hit the peak voltage at the same time. Norway had an all synchronized power network since the late 1950s; power people from other countries said "You guys are crazy, synchronizing power stations 2000 km apart!" - but we did. Today, with atomic clocks and power semiconductors, it is a trivial matter.
There are some oddballs, like the Norwegian railroad system (which is mostly electrified) for historical reasons run on 16 2/3 Hz AC, so they must either have their own power stations (which they partly have), or they must convert from the standard 50 Hz. But if you look up the various voltages, AC frequencies or DC, and ways of getting the electricity to the locomotive (pentagraph, third rail, ...), it is a big mess all over the world, and a mess in Europe. Many countries have two or three different alternatives. Norwegian subways use 750V DC from a third rail, while (long distance) trains use 15,000V, 16 2/3 Hz AC from an overhead cable (catenary), but at least four other systems are used in Europe.
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Yeah, that 230v is a misnomer. It's still 240v but we label everything as 230v and add a tolerance to harmonise with Europe's 220v. So we've got 240, they've got 220 and we all call it 230!
50Hz. Ah, the 50Hz hum. You get to recognise it, whenever a jack plug isn't in properly or something. I've not heard the US 60Hz, but I guess your mains hum must be a couple of semitones higher (I could work it out, but can't be bothered!)
1800W - that's not a lot. So the most common fuse here is 13A which gives an appliance circa 3KW. I'm told that a 13a fuse will actually blow at about 20 amps. My ovens require a 16A fuse, but I've just stuck a 13A socket on them and they work fine, which is handy as otherwise I'd have to go all the way back to the consumer unit.
I, and probably some other weirdos, feel some affection for our 3 pin plug. It heralds from a time when the UK did things properly (now we just do everything as cheaply as possible or better yet import it). The earth pin is longer than the live/neutral, and the extra length opens shutters in the socket which prevents kids sticking metal things in the sockets. Everything is fused and earthed. It's very good!
But coming back to the 120v, I wonder what that feels like. Having had more than my fair share of connections to 240v, I can say it certainly wakes you up (at a minimum). Actually, I had a near fatal shock when I was six where I couldn't let go which burned a hole in my hand. 240v is lethal, your chances have to be much better at 120v, so maybe the need for all the clever stuff of the three pin plug isn't needed.
I don't know why I find all this so interesting.... 
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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Rob Philpott wrote: But coming back to the 120v, I wonder what that feels like.
It's happened to me. I felt quite shocked. Ha! 
That was awful, wasn't it? I deserve to be berated.
Seriously though, when I was around age 4, I somehow received an electric shock while trying to push my finger into an electrical socket. That's not supposed to happen. I didn't understand electricity or electrical sockets. I thought that something sharp inside the socket had suddenly jumped out and jabbed me. I concluded that an ill-tempered tiny little animal lived inside. I never tried it again.
I have also been shocked inadvertently by making skin contact with the power cable to the vacuum cleaner. Its protective sheath was previously mangled by the vacuum cleaner itself, exposing the wires. The shock certainly got my attention, but I don't remember it being particularly painful.
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Most of Norway uses a power distribution system called "IT", Isolated Terra (i.e. ground), rather than "TN", Terra and Neutral. IT is "delta" 3-phase: There is no neutral; you'll find 230V between two triangle corners. TN uses "star" 3-phase, with 230V from a corner to a center neutral, 400V between triangle corners.
With IT, the two pins giving you 230V is supposed to be symmetric around ground potential (otherwise you have a ground problem that should be fixed). So e.g. if one of the conductors shortcut to the shield of the apparatus, you touch it and ground at the same time, you will experience roughly half the voltage. To get a 230V shock, you would have to touch both conductors at the same time, before the fuse blows.
In a TN system, you will have a 230V blow if you touch any conductor, and you are grounded. If you touch two corners of the star, i.e. two live conductors on different phases, you get a 400V blow.
Several times I have tried to make power supply people explain to me what is so great about TN, what's in it for me as a consumer. They invariably come up with a lot of advantages as seen from the power station, things that I do not see as a consumer. I am currently on an IT network, and I see no reason to fight for an "upgrade" to TN. (It won't happen anyway, as it would require all new cabling: IT manages with 3 conductors, TN requires 4 or 5, depending on whether you want a separate ground conductor.
The only issue with IT is for those who want to install a fast 3-phase charger for their electric cars. Very few cars have onboard chargers that can handle 3*230V, almost all are for 3*400V. As I do not yet have an electric car, it doesn't matter much. Besides, an 11 or 22 kW single-phase charger is fast enough for me (with less wear on the batteries). I much prefer a lower shock in case of a short circuit somewhere.
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UK power, like Europe, is 50Hz.
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Try to get electrocuted; you'll find it difficult. And why do you claim there's no fuse? Every string of lights I've seen has two fuses in the male plug end, the end that connects to building power outlets. Additionally, every branch circuit in the building has a circuit breaker protecting it.
But I agree with not killing trees, unless your beaver is hungry, of course. I used to decorate with a tree when I had little kids around but now that they're all gone, killing trees for their own kids, I just decorate my first Christmas tree that I bought when I moved here, then planted it in the front yard. It's almost impossible to do so anymore, since it's grown to about thirty feet tall, but I still toss some lights on it once in a while.
Will Rogers never met me.
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Roger Wright wrote: I agree with not killing trees
I used the phrase, "slaughtering them by the millions", in reference to this behavior last week.
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My uncle started a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania USA. It has supplied the White House their main Christmas tree twice. It is being run by a third generation family member today. So I would say in their case, bringing trees indoors at Christmas has supplied them with a nice income for generations.
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Steve Raw wrote: What I don't understand is
why a person would go chop down some perfectly
good tree
Cause it is going to be cold outside? Inside is warm.
Steve Raw wrote: There must be something that compels people to spend
time and effort on such a perplexing activity.
Do you know what the New York SantaCon is? How about ultra marathons? Or 24 hour mountain bike racing?
Or that the hot dog eating record is 76? I mean where do those even go?
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Very good, brightened my day.
Christougenniatikphobia, you're welcome (of course there's a name for it! No idea how you say it though, not gonna try).
https://discover.hubpages.com/holidays/Christmas-Phobias
You can call me an idiot
Don't tempt me! 🤣 Cheers.
Paul Sanders.
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal.
Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
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I switched to an artificial tree many years ago. 
No more needless killing of the only thing that gives us breathable air. (I know algae are helping as well)
It has 500 LED lights build in, sets up in under an hour, and looks good.
It doesn't have the 'smell' but at least it doesn't interfere with the Christmas cooking.
Stop killing our friends, they deserve life too.
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Quote:
Regardless, I think a fuse and
ground connection might come in useful.
Grounding, certainly - it will prevent electrocution of people touching the tree in the event that a live wire closes a circuit with the tree.
Fuse? Not so much. It can't prevent a fire started by arcing because the arc will jump before the fuse is involved, hence a fuse is not going to help with arcing. It can't prevent a fire from a non-arc short because your house's breaker will trip before the element in question heats up enough to start a fire (breakers typically trip within milliseconds of overcurrent).
After all, with almost 100m American households having a flammable[1] tree at christmas, it's still almost unheard of for house-fire statistics to rise in December.
In fact, I don't think they ever did!
So the dangers are less than one would think (numbers don't lie).
Quote:
The question I can't answer is, why? Does it symbolize
something? What meaning does it have, and what amount
of importance supports that meaning?
Why do modern people do it? Because tradition!
Why did the tradition arise? Because, in order to propagate, Christianity leaders chose existing holy days as christian holy days (after all, no one had a clue what month Jesus was born in, let alone what day of the month that was. I'm pretty certain that they weren't quite sure of the season either), and the day they chose as Christ's birthday was an existing Pagan holy day that involved Trees.
[1] Plastic is flammable too!
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Member 13301679 wrote: Grounding, certainly - it will prevent electrocution of people touching the tree in the event that a live wire closes a circuit with the tree.
Are you talking about a natural, wooden tree? Wood is quite insulating. Besides, if you have a wooden floor (which is the most common around here), you have no electrical contact with ground. You are like a bird sitting on a power line: There is no reason why the electricity would run through your body. Where should it go from there?
[1] Plastic is flammable too! Some plastics are. Around here, plastic Christmas trees must be made from inflammable plastics. (The plastics may melt from strong heat, which may be bad enough if you get it on your skin, but being inflammable implies that it won't help flames spread.)
the day they chose as Christ's birthday was an existing Pagan holy day that involved Trees. The birth date of Jesus was set around 300 CE. The Christmas tree tradition developed in Germany and neighboring countries in the 1500s, and had no effect on what happened 1200 years earlier.
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Queen Victoria said that was the way to do it. Who are you to say "no"? 'Course, she was using candles not electrical lights... but the principle of dangerous stuff in the house is basically unchanged.
I heard a joke this year too - Christmas tree joke - guy said he was calling his tree "Amy Winehouse" cause he knew it was going to die and leave lots of needles laying around.
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Killing trees: I used to not feel so good about the use of live trees for this myself. I later realized that these trees are farmed. i.e. they wouldn't exist if there wasn't a market for them, just like heads of lettuce and other vegetables. So, although yes, it's still killing of a perfectly good plant, it's not like Christmas tree purveyors are buying forests up constantly to feed to their customers.
Electric lights on trees: There is a small fuse in the plug of all strings of lights (UL listed anyway which is about all you can find I think now-a-days). Also, the wires are really thin so even if you touched two raw wires of it together right from the plug I'm talking, before the string's fuse blew it'd be a pretty small arc. And lastly, since 2017, in the US the national electric code requires the use of an arc fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) in nearly every home circuit (some exceptions for large appliance circuits). This would exist in the central panel. So, the circuit breaker would detect the arc and trip.
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There are several reasons for a Christmas tree in the home. Some of those reasons mix together.
For me, it is primarily the Christian religion for what a tree means in my faith (a whole other story), combined with family traditions that are pleasant to my memories.
When we used live trees, the relationship part of finding and cutting down a tree with a family member is a precious memory. The smell and the shared effort and time together meant something.
As for the electrical and fire issues, we took precautions to minimize the probability of an incident to make the outcome more valuable than the risk.
Later, we shifted to artificial trees, and like the real trees, enjoyed the time decorating together. Each day we see them, it reminds us of the real reason for Christ in Christmas, and for how much we enjoy this time with family.
So, by both having a defined and understood purpose, and mitigating risk to a safe level, we can put up a Christmas tree and not have any worries about it.
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I to was curious about the Xmas tree, and did some research about 15 years ago.
The Xmas tree comes from the Germans, or Germanic tribes back in earlier days, perhaps during the days of the Roman Empire, when during the winter or shortest days of the year, they would cut a tree down and put it in the house. They just wanted to bring a part of the outdoors inside, to brighten things up inside the house or shelter. The legend or story of the tree goes back to the Santa Klaus days, where Germans swear they saw a chubby man in a fire lit sleigh fly across the skies during the darkest of dark days.
Then the Germans brought the idea to America during immigration in the early 1800s on the east coast. I think the concept took decades, but it caught on. One day, a famous American women thought the tree was boring and made some decorations to put on the tree, and published the idea in a famous magazine, and women in America started making Xmas Tree ornaments. They became popular, and the Germans quickly capitalized on the idea and started making ornaments, and sold them on the streets of New York during Xmas. Soon women across the East Coast were buying ornaments instead of making them, and then it went retail at stores such as Macy's. Soon everything was being decorated at Xmas time.
I didn't check into the lights, but would imagine it probably occurred in the 1920s, when light bulbs were more available. So to the best of my knowledge, it's a New York thing, that they made popular. It's funny how these things or traditions start, and somehow become mandatory by our parents as unbreakable traditions that are concrete and cannot be refused.
Xmas is a trip to me, where there are two versions of it, one being Pagan that I call Xmas, and the other that competes with the Pagan version called Christmas, which is promoted by the Christian Church. I believe I read that Christmas was promoted as a substitute, for what they use to do in London, where during the darkest of dark days or Xmas eve in general, they built a large fire in town at night called the Yule Log, which was the Pagan tradition of that time, and gather warmth while drinking spirits late into the night with friends and family.
The Germans also brought the Easter Egg and Easter Bunny to America as well, and that company that makes the Easter Egg coloring kits is German, called "PAAS" I think. The legend of the Easter Bunny is German as well, and that's all I know about it, I'm sure it's related to the melting of snow, and welcoming of spring, and is not religious in any sense, but Pagan in general.
I personally after reading up on the history of Xmas and Christmas, don't do the tree anymore, or the lights on the house, I'm over it, but I like the Yule Log idea.
If it ain't broke don't fix it
Discover my world at jkirkerx.com
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jkirkerx wrote: One day, a famous American women thought the tree was boring and made some decorations to put on the tree, and published the idea in a famous magazine, and women in America started making Xmas Tree ornaments.
Decorating Christmas trees started in the 1500s in Germany, often apples and sweets, and kids were allowed to "harvest" the goodies on the thirteenth day of Christmas.
We did the same in my childhood: My birthday is on the 18th day of Christmas. An essential part of the decoration was small paper baskets, filled with nuts, almonds, raisins, small chocolates ... In my birthday party, we made a last walk around the tree, then the guests were invited to harvest it, removing all the decorations and eating whatever they found in the baskets. Finally we opened the living room window to throw the tree out, with everybody cheering.
In my childhood, the decorations where 90% home made. Making baskets, chains of colored paper rings, balls of yarn, figures of rye straw - split them with a razor blade to fold them out, glue them onto a sheet of paper edge to edge, and iron the sheet at medium heat, and they turn blank, golden, very nice for cutting figures of horses or squirrels or whatever to put on the tree. When cracking walnuts, we always tried to open the shell without breaking it, so that it could be glued together and painted with silver or gold paint, to put on the tree. For the baskets, there was a range from very simple to make, kindergarten level, to advanced models requiring a lot of cutting and folding, for the older kids.(Wikipedia: Pleated Christmas hearts[^]
Making tree decorations was a common advent activity in kindergartens and primary schools, as well as a family activity. We tended to frown at families who didn't have a single home made decoration; those trees were simply boring! (We also saw it as a way of showing off, in a negative sense.)
I didn't check into the lights, but would imagine it probably occurred in the 1920s, when light bulbs were more available. The Norwegian Wikipedia entry on the Christmas tree quotes Johann Wolfgang Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther[^] from 1774 (Google translation of the Norwegian edition - maybe the wording is different in a proper translation):
He spoke of how much fun it would be for the little ones, and of the time when the long-awaited moment when the door suddenly opened to reveal a tree decorated with candles, sweets and apples had filled him with paradisiacal rapture
So in 1774, indoor decorated trees, with candles, appears to be a well known phenomenon.
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I had no idea it went back that far, but that sounds like loading the tree up with delicious foods that kids can't resist, like hanging a salami or cheese on the tree, rather than a cheap glass ornament, in which the first sounds like a better idea. But you did make ornaments as well with the family, so these traditions do go way back in time, and seem to be present today as well. You have a nice family!
My source claimed to be the source of sources, but most likely just another story of how it started in America at least. I never looked into the 12 days of Xmas, and how that started, but it must be German as well. There are so many stories and traditions that are lost today, that one can write a book about it to refresh our memories.
Thanks for sharing that ...
Another lesson I learned today
If it ain't broke don't fix it
Discover my world at jkirkerx.com
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There are fuses in each strand of lights.
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Observed highschooler , she wore ID ,
sitting in front of open laptop,
using all 10 fingers punching iphone
and chew noisy bubble gum
would not like to meet her on the road
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Wonder how many LOL's per minute she can type?
As the aircraft designer said, "Simplicate and add lightness".
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.0 JaxCoder.com
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