Is there any regulations about manufacturers selling appliances with too large a fuse in the plug? I have emailed the company in question and have yet to receive a reply. But, IMHO a 13 Amp fuse for a device with a 1 Amp requirement and a 3 Amp rated flex is not good.
My understanding is the fuse is only to protect the cable to the appliance. I guess the manufacturer would use their own fuse inside the appliance to protect it, should that be a requirment.
But is there actually a 13A fuse in the plugtop, or is it just a 13A rated plug? Mr. HandyAndy - Really
The company involved is CTEK, They are manufacturers of high quality vehicle battery chargers and they boast that they supply chargers to Ferrari, Mercedes etc. They have replied in what I feel is an unacceptable ignorance of the issue It is quite incredible that a company that are designing and manufacturing microprocessor controlled devices have such a lax attitude to using the incorrect rating of fuse. I expect it is because in Europe they don't have fuses in plugs but, None the less WE do in the UK and I'm sure that trading standards might be interested in this.
CTEK do a very small maintenance charger with a max output of 0.8A - wonder if that's the one he's got
It is the XS7000 which is a 7amp output and is marked as having an input current of 1 Amp. I misjudged the flex, It is 0.75mm2. Even still, Why to have a fuse rated 13 times higher than the operating current?
Probably because the 0.75mm cable will be protected against short circuit by the 13a fuse and being a fixed (maximum) load there's no chance of overload?
Out of curiosity I checked what fuse is in my Halford's car battery charger ( of approx same output), Seems they are more realistic - A 5 Amp fuse.
If you check the technical data it states that the inrush current is <40A. I would suggest that the 13 amp fuse is to prevent fuses blowing through the inrush and is perfectly adequate for the job. Kind regards BS
http://www.energymatters.com.au/images/ctek/XS7000.pdf Pge 2 bottom right hand side under Specification. Kind regards BS
That's interesting Bazza, The information on CTEK's own site and the booklet supplied with the charger has different info to this from an Australian site.
The requirement for Au may be different. If you have purchased this you should have a Declaration of Conformity with it. That will tell you what EU Directives and Standards they have complied with. If you can quote the Standards I may be able to give more, but I suspect as I said before, the surge is why they have installed a 13A fuse. Kind regards BS
that might be the case for an old fashioned charger, using a traditional wound transformer - these CTEK chargers are all SS and processor controlled, there might be a few tiny inductors on the input but certainly nothing that'll produce a large inrush - these things are tiny beasts