Another Electrical Power Question

[Hank W.]

Inside.

I'd though think popping the cord is more convenient than having to take the appliance to a rip-off centre.

[Hank W.]

Inside in the machine. The 'power' has one 99% of the time. But it requires opening up => rip-off centre. I've studied computer powers a lot (usually changing the direction of fans) As I said we don't have that funky electricity here it would be warranted. There is an extra thingamajiong costs about 9-10 euros you can buy for the computer if you live in the sticks. Most frying happens though in the boondocks thru modem & antennae cables when the lightning strikes in an appropriate location. So a fuse in the power outlet isn't much use.

Only time I fried a fuse was when I was drilling the hardwood for the kitchen sink and my faithful 10 euro chinese drill overheated and gave white smoke out... worked fine after cooling down...

[Hank W.]

OK, got it now.

Of course the appliance is important, they cost money.

See, now in the UK they don't get Darwinism in action. All the stupid people in Finland that go cutting live wires with power cables get electricuted.

And that is why we had the Finnish Elecric Safety Board go and approve all the appliances. As the EU said its a BAD thing now you can bring any crap into the country and they can only test afterwards. Used to be very few recalls in the old days.

And yeah, my nephews an electrician and he's quite adamant with having the wires all in the right place.

And yeah, we do have 'Victorian Era' cabling here too. Mine's only 'Hippie Era' as all the coloring was 'wrong'.

As a sidenote: seen US wiring? they have metal switches!

[Wombat]

Yeah I was confused with what Hank W. was saying too. I remember the apartment I was living at in England had a fuse in the socket too. They were only in the kitchen though. That's what I though he was talking about at first but I've never seen those here.

[Wombat]

No, no, there were two of them, I swear! I remember seeing this little cover next to the switch and wondering what on earth it was so I opened it and a fuse popped out. They were both just above the bench on opposite sides of the kitchen. I guess that's not too common then?

[dusty_bin]

I understand entirely the reasons why the UK refused to go along with the European wiring and plug/socket system.

I am not an electrician, but I know that the UK fuse system is much safer in case of accident than the Euro standard. To claim that the Finnish system demonstrates Darwinism in action is fallacious. The European system was designed for cheapness and no other reason. Now, of course, the incremental cost of the UK system is miniscule and the cost of changing is huge. There is no good reason for designing a system without sensible failsafes, OTOH I can understand why, again for cost; Europe ain't about to follow the UK lead.

In my previous business, we had good reason to be happy with the fused plug system, it enabled us to work efficiently in surroundings where the supply was possibly 'compromised'. In Finland such work would not be possible, or much more costly to carry out.

Interstingly, I have noiced in Finland, particularly in connection with domestic PCs, a lot of power supply accessories designed to protect the computer and data. Smoothers, emergency power supplies etc. These are just not considered necessary on the UK, for domestic use. Is this somethin gof a comment on the quality of supply in areas away from Helsinki city centre, or another example of Finnish 'risk aversion'?

[Hank W.]

Well, as you can see from last year, there is always a chance of a power outage.

[Sari]

Anyone else managed to get a UK purchased TV to wórk here.?[/quote]


yes. ours work fine. both sound&picture. had e v e r y t h i n g (incl.washingmachine and dishwasher...) shipped over here from the UK last year. and all work fine.

[TOMPPA]

Thanks for your input guys. I didn't realise that there was so much to it to be honest.

The TV and video combi thing that we've got and the portable TV are both 1-2 year old Phillips make. I spoke to Phillips customer care in Croydon, although I think that's actually Croydon just west of Calcutta rather than London, gauging by the girls accent. Anyway, she assures me that the particular model I've got will run in Finland as it's got capability to pick up various different Pal signals etc etc.

I will attempt to bring both TVs over and pray they work. After all we don't want to miss all those exciting episodes of The Bold and The Beautiful !

Thanks

Tom