Comment on The "standard" car charger is usually overkill—but your electrician might not know that [32:26]
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week agoAlso worth noting that breaker ratings are for instantaneous usage. A 15A 120v breaker can only actually support 12A of continuous usage. But it says 15, because most things use a little extra power when they first turn on. AC system spinning up the fans and compressor, for instance. If you put a 15A device on a 15A breaker, it would likely trip as soon as that device turned on. In that instance, you’d likely use a 20A breaker to support the 15A device instead. But that 20A breaker would also call for upgraded wiring and outlets which could support 20A.
antimidas@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Ok – that works a bit differently for our code then. Standard breakers are 10 A and 16 A, which means 10 A and 16 A constant load. Load characteristics affect which profile you use, typical residential alternatives are B and C profile breakers. B trips quicker, C trips slower and is meant for circuits with more reactive load characteristics. 16 A C profile breaker can take up to an hour to trip under 18-19 A load as an example. Your standard breaker can deal with quite a lot of inrush current – even with the faster B profile.
Wiring is built to withstand approximately 15 A when using a 10 A breaker, and 20 A when using a 16 A breaker. As such, the fuses display the value for constant loads, not for the peak. The most commonly used outlets in the EU (i.e. Schuko) are rated for 8 A continuous, 16 A peak, and are typically put on a 16 A circuit. 10 A circuits are mainly used for lighting nowadays, at least in Finland – 16 A being the standard for most things.
The voltage difference might have something to do with this, as 230 V will be capable of driving much more power though a potential short. As such any actual fault condition will most likely cause the fuse to trip quite quickly. Also current code mandates GFCI on all outlets in a house, which will help with smaller faults that aren’t enough for the breaker to trip.