Originally Posted by
joeavaerage
Hi,
the old style Reyrolle plugs are not illegal in New Zealand ....yet, but it is illegal to fit them as new, and that's not an issue as they have not been manufactured for twenty plus
years. You can still find them in farmers workshops and other out-of-the-way places but now increasingly rare.
The current style is based on an IEC design standard, and its this style installed throughout the commercial and industrial sectors, see the attached pics as examples.
They are not common in domestic situations and many domestic plug/socket combinations are 10A or in some cases 15A. Only time a 32A socket is used is for connecting
a domestic oven.
The upshot is that if you want a larger single phase connection than the 10/15A standard for CNC for instance, then you will require an electrician fit a dedicated circuit.
As an example, when I rewired my house, I had a new 6mm2 cable fitted for my domestic oven, but I also had had a loop such that I could fit a 32A socket
'out-back'. The circuit is protected by a 32A C curve breaker. In reality I can use the CNC mill OR I can use the oven, using both at once is likely to cause a breaker trip.
Additionally all new domestic electrical work in New Zealand must be covered by RCD protection. A domestic oven supply is exempted because the intention is that no-one
would ever use the oven socket for anything else than an oven. Little do they know that I have a general purpose socket as part of that same oven circuit and thus its not
protected by an RCD either. When I get my larger spindle (3kW) up and running I will have to change the breaker to D curve.
I am still giving considerable thought to the proposition of building-in an electronic power factor correction circuit into my spindle servo drive OR whether I use a largish
single phase line reactor. Even with a 32A circuit a spindle drive WITHOUT some power factor correction would still stress my supply. I use smaller line reactors on
my other VFD and spindle servo drive and they have proven to be great at improving power factor but especially reducing the electrical 'hash' that propagates throughout
the rest of my machine and household.
Craig