Do I need a fuse? (1 Viewer)

[Guigsy]

I've gone lithium and had to replace all my chargers to be lithium friendly. At the moment, I've got the Victron IP22 mains charger wired to the battery, and it's working fine. But it's just plugged into a 3 pin socket with the wire tucked away.

The question is, can I safely cut the moulded plug off the charger and spur it straight into the mains wiring that feeds the Elekroblock without a fuse? If it were an EU spec charger, there wouldn't be a fuse in the plug, so I should be fine, right?

Note: the Elekroblock is still connected so I get the indicator on the panel, but the fuse for the charger is removed, so it doesn't interfere with the Victron.

 

[Lenny HB]

The fuse is there to protect the cable, so if the charger had a fault that caused it to draw high current from the mains the fuse would blow protecting the cable from catching fire. UK uses a 32 amp rig main to supply the house sockets.

As you say no fuse in the European version as they use radial circuits in house wiring so each socket is fused at the consumer unit. Three sizes of plugs and sockets 5 amp, 10 amp & 15 amp so it would probably be fused at 5 amps.

Motorhomes are wired with a radial circuit but normally all sockets are daisy chained off one MCB/Fuse.
The sensible thing to would be to add a 5 amp MCB to your consumer unit and wire it to that.

 

[Guigsy]

If I'm tagging off the same cable that feeds the Elekroblock, that formerly did the charging, then I should have sufficient protection, no?

 

[Derbyshire wanderer]

The fuse is there to protect the cable and appliance from damage or overheating due to a fault.
Assuming the cable is not at risk of physical damage then this isn’t an issue. Should the charger itself go faulty, the lack of a fuse could be a problem.

 

[Guigsy]

There is a fuse in the unit.

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[tonyidle]

I've used the fridge (6A) MCB.

 

[Derbyshire wanderer]

There is a fuse in the unit.

A fuse in the charger? If so you should have covered all bases and not need anything else.

 

[autorouter]

In a motorhome, the maximum amps you can draw is 16A, because that's what the maximum rated site hookup will provide. The wire to the charger is rated as at least 16A, because it's the same wire as used if a continental round '2-pin' 16A plug were attached. So no fuse is necessary.

The fuse on the UK 13A plug is required because most UK domestic sockets are wired on a ring main, with a breaker of 32A, so individual appliances that can't take 32A need a fuse in the plug. It's a UK thing. Everyone else has 'radial' circuits with 16A breakers, and all appliances have 16A wire (1.5mm²), and no fuses in the plugs.

Actually, it is if anything safer wired like that. A fuse is inherently single pole, so could be unsafe if the live and neutral were reversed - a common scenario on campsites outside UK. The regs require all protection devices in a motorhome or caravan to be double pole.

If you were wiring it into a domestic wiring circuit (eg in a garage at home in UK) you would need a fused spur box with a flex outlet, and a 13A fuse.

 

[Lenny HB]

If I'm tagging off the same cable that feeds the Elekroblock, that formerly did the charging, then I should have sufficient protection, no?

Our Hymer and previous ones just has a 10 MCB that feeds everthing.

 

[tinkertaylor]

Jesus , yet again we have posters who don't know, posting dangerous advice
.The fuse in the unit is on the outgoing side, the low voltage side.

You need a fuse/mcb either in the plug or if you cut that off one feeding it as Lenny HB pointed out.

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[Derbyshire wanderer]

Jesus , yet again we have posters who don't know, posting dangerous advice
.The fuse in the unit is on the outgoing side, the low voltage side.

You need a fuse/mcb either in the plug or if you cut that off one feeding it as Lenny HB pointed out.

Reviewing what I previously said, I did mean a fuse on the input of the charger as we were talking about the mains supply.
The cable point still stands as this is still at the same capacity as the 16a input which would have no other fuse/current protection before the bollard socket supply.