Guest martin h Posted July 8, 2005 Share Posted July 8, 2005 hi, sorry more daft questions...when hooked up to french lectric can you use ordinary household stuff like kettles and hairdriers? and if not what can you use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Clive Posted July 8, 2005 Share Posted July 8, 2005 YES Up to the capacity of the supply. Most French sites provide either a 16 amp (round blue plug) or a 6 amp supply (small round French connector with 2 pins and 1 socket) Providing your kettle is a camping type (about 800 watts) then you should not have any problems with either size of supply. If your kettle is a 2.4 Kw or 3 Kw domestic jobbie than you need to be on a fully rated blue 16 amp supply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Neal Posted July 8, 2005 Share Posted July 8, 2005 Martin Don't rely on the type, or colour, of the connecting socket as an indication of the supply amperage. A blue socket can indicate a supply of UP TO 16A but could be less. As for any other type of socket, it could be as low as 2A or could be as high as 12A. Always check at reception and modify your usage to suit. Regards Neal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest martin h Posted July 9, 2005 Share Posted July 9, 2005 ta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Roy Hamilton Posted July 9, 2005 Share Posted July 9, 2005 Don't forget the polarity tester! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest martin h Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 Roy, I wont forget the tester, but i wont understand what it does either. please expain in simple terms .sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Roy Hamilton Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 Hi Martin, As simple as possible, no doubt someone more knowledgeable will help if I get it not quite right. This is a 240v problem nothing to do with the 12v dc system. Electricity arrives from the power station along two wires or conductors one is live ( The red one) and carries 240v and the other is neutral (The blue one) and until you switch something on it carries virtually no power. Switches in UK have two poles or connectors and the switch only switches off one of the conductors that is the live one. This is called single pole switching. That's OK as long as everything is wired live to live and neutral to neutral. But on the Continent to avoid mistakes they use double pole switches so that it does not matter if things are wired live to live and neutral to neutral. So it could be the case that live wires are connected to the neutral terminal and vice versa and if this was the case our UK single pole switch would not disconnect the live wire from the appliance. This does not affect the working of the appliance but could be dangerous if you thought the wiring was switched off when in fact it was not. So after connecting to any site system (even in the UK) you should test the system with a polarity tester which is small plug like gadget with a series of LEDs which light to tell you if the system is polarity reversed or not. In addition they will tell you if the earth system is safe ( This is vital) or if any of the live wires are connected to earth. Anything can happen on these foreign sites! You can wire up a short length of lead to fit between your main lead and the site plug in point with the live wire and the neutral wire reversed to correct the site's reversed polarity if you find that this is the case. I am not an electrician so if you have any difficulty with this at all please consult a local qualified electrician. I do not warrant this information this is only my understanding of the problem Electricity is dangerous please be careful. Search in the forum for "Reverse Polarity" (without the inverted commas) and you will find further info. You can obtain the tester in any caravan dealer. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mel B Posted July 11, 2005 Share Posted July 11, 2005 In our recent trip to France we found that the sites with the 'familiar' blue connectors were wired correctly, but the French type 2 pin connectors were all reversed polarity. We still checked every one just to be safe though. We did have some fun one night on a lovely little tucked away site at Tornac, which was obviously a favourite haunt of the Dutch ... we were the only British there and thought we must've detoured to Holland! We were sunning ourselves one evening when all of a sudden there was a lot of shouting and gesturing, stomping around and excitement ... why? One of the Dutch had overloaded the site's electric and tripped the whole lot out!!! It must've been the most excitement they'd had for ages by the way they all got really hyper about it all. I pity the poor block who caused the problem, he must've been really trying as we hadn't done it with our electric ring and grill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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