Doing mains right.

cheers

Nigel

- Simon

I tried to have a separate spur put in a few years ago - I get a lot of transformer humming from my 250 - but I simply couldn't find an electrician who would listen to me!

From what I remember from the old forum, the cable needs to be really heavy duty, 12.5mm I believe was suggested. This is the sort of stuff used for cookers and the sparky I spoke to just laughed.

You're not too far away from me in Staffs so let me know how you get on. Please let me know if you find a decent electrician.

Phil Craddock

Fuse all your leads together (live with live, earth with earth, neutral with neutral) and connect the fused ends into a fuseless 15 amp air conditioning plug. Quite a squeeze, or if you're really into it, you could connect the fused ends into a 30A or 40A isolator.

Hope this helps.

Happy listening; the music's still grooving.

Philip Pang

naimniac for life

Use at least 6mm cable with a 32 amp fuse or MCB in the first position next to the main switch with a unswitched MK logic double socket on the other end for total bliss. Tell the sparky what you want and he should do, it its not aganst the regs and you are paying him so he should do what you want. I have used two 4mm as I had run out of 6mm when I did my rewire, works fine and I have the option of having two spurs at a later date.

pete

Don't worry, I said tell the sparky what you want so no need for a disclaimer, but if you are stupid to mess with something you know nothing about then no amount of warnings will help.

pete

Thank you for all the replies. I will now try to answer your points in turn (with out the aid of a safety net).

Phil. C – are you sure 12.5mm cable is needed? I think they use 6mm for cookers and that’s really hard to work with so I can’t imagine trying to use 12.5mm (even if I can find any). As for finding a decent electrician that will do what he’s told – I am blessed in that my farther and uncle are both retired electricians I can’t imagine how many years experience they have between them.

Philip P – Does this all components using a single plug method make much difference? I was just going to use 2 dual un-switched sockets.

Dave – The MCB stands for miniature contact breakers – I have one slot free on my consumer unit and not much space at my meter position so I think a separate fused unit is going to tricky. As for Electricity being dangerous etc I am only doing the money, a helping hand and catering side of the deal ;-) (see later part of the reply to Phil C).

Right I think that’s covered it all. Thanks once again.

- Simon

It did for Martin Colloms when he reviewed active SBLs way back in '93-'94. I tried this with my passive system, and everything seemed more coherent, with less glare. The music swung more. The 15A plug has to be fuseless - the whole idea is to remove the resistor (not that it makes a world of a difference, but in tinkering with our tweaks, all the little bits add up to the big picture)

As for the switchless dual sockets, I suppose that's a tried and tested recipe in Europe, but we don't have them here in Singapore for safety reasons, so I can't really comment. Martin used a single Crabtree mains plug for the review.

Good listening; the music's still groovin'.

Philip

naimniac for life

Russ Andrews publishes a small booklet called 'The Power and the Glory' which is a basic guide to putting in a dedicated spur. Although it advocates using all his products, it is also a very good guide for you and your electrician in that it shows, in very simple to understand terms, what is required.

As a matter of interest, I used all of the component parts he advocates, including Kimber mains cable and the result was nothing short of amazing. It was akin to going from a 250 to a pair of 135's. Everybody that has heard it has been impressed. RA's contact number is 0800 373467.

Good luck,
John.

cheers, Martin