[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by GuillaumeB

This is a very common misconception: the fuse in the mains plug is not there to protect the appliance it is powering, it is there to protect the cable. It is based on the premise that in the UK most power cords will be connected to a 32A ring mains (ring circuit). This means that you could draw 32A from a socket without tripping the breaker at the consumer unit.

On this basis I would always recommend that you work with your electrician if wishing to use fuseless power cables such as Schuko and NEMA ones. I certainly wouldn't recommend modifying a UK power cable to bypass the fuse since it invalidates the cable warranty and reduces options in terms of resale/trade in values further down the line. In some ways using an expensive Orange fuse might prove to be the cheaper option.

In my own home setup I have a dedicated consumer unit connected directly to the Henley block (junction box that splits tails from the meter). This feeds 8 radial circuits, of which 3 are terminated with Furutech NEMA Furutech GTX-D sockets and the others are unswitched standard MK double sockets. The in-wall cable used is standard 6mm T&E. Getting my electrician to sign everything off was challenging; in the end I had to compromise with 10A circuits with RCBO (type B) for the US sockets and 20A circuits with regular RCD breakers for the UK circuits. All of this work was certified by the electrician and I received the relevant NICEIC certification.

As a result of having both systems I have been able to experiment widely with both UK and US power cables and in my humble opinion the differences between UK and US Shunyata variants are modest. I used to use almost exclusively US cables but have pretty much migrated to UK cables now. Having dedicated 20A radials for the UK circuits certainly helps to close the gap.

Cheers,

Guillaume

Wow, very helpful post and information, G. Thanks so much.