mains spurs

quote:

Originally posted by robertw:
Can anyone give a step by step guide to creating an ideal mains spur....including advice on:
single or multiple?
fuses and amperage.
cable 10ml or 6ml
plugs ?naim ?fused
and is it worth it?
My electrician wants to know,and Yes he is good

Hi Robert,

Just been through this exercise (although Oz is slightly different to the UK)!

My recommendation is:

1. Get as many "hifi" spurs put in as:
a) you can afford,
b) have space for in your Circuit Breaker Box, and
c) can install without taking the house apart!!

I used to have a 32amp (6mm2) circuit going to my power amps and a 20amp (2.5mm2) circuit going to all my sources. I am replacing the 20amp "source" spur with 2 x 32amp spurs ... one for preamp & phonostage, the other for CDP, Lingo and tuner.

I would've liked to run a second 32amp spur for my power amps but unfortunately this is not possible!

2. Use 10mm2 cable (and the appropriate higher-rated MCB) if you are able to ... there might be an overall amperage limitation which depends on what amperage wire you have coming in from the street?

3. Rearrange the order of the MCBs in your Circuit Breaker box so that all the hifi circuits are next to the main ON/OFF switch (or RCD, if you have one fitted), with the "noisy" circuits (which have fridges, computers, TVs etc. plugged in) furthest away.

Regards,

Andy

quote:

Rearrange the order of the MCBs in your Circuit Breaker box so that all the hifi circuits are next to the main ON/OFF switch

....or better still install a dedicated Consumer Unit taking a feed from the incoming supply before the domestic Consumer Unit....

....hope this still qualifies as 'general' advise....

One option you may like to consider is rather than have a 2nd consumer unit next to your existing one and run multiple spurs from that like I did. (This before the new regs so I have a junction box on one of them that then feeds my hydra and is hard wired, with no switch. You can't do this now, as everything must be locally isolated - so you can turn it off, if your being electrocuted!). I had 1 hard wired spur and 4 dual 13amp socket spurs fitted, however a better option, and legal under current regs, would be to have an armored cable taken from before your existing consumer unit to a new HiFi consumer unit in your listening room. As consumer units have a big On/Off switch, then it is locally isolatable,so you can then (legally) hard wire direct to this if you want to and still be within existing regulations.

It could also work out cheaper if you need to cut through joists etc as 5 lengths of 10mm cable to my room took a lot of work, 1 (No idea what the size should be) armored cable would have been cheaper, and if you could hide the unit behind the rack the S/HWMBO could still be happy.

FYI one of the best upgrades I've done, a bit like adding a HiCap but more imortant, for me, it made my system consistant - i.e. none of those days when my system just didn't sound righ, now it always sings.