Penang shophouse electrical power supplies

It really amazes me what I come across in my travels. In this case, it is the shophouse electrical power supply that I saw in Penang. First of all, most of the shophouses here have three-phase power supplies. This is a stark contrast to Singapore where most of the shophouses only come with a single-phase power supply. Secondly, you can see here that they do not really “protect” these power supplies. It looks like anyone can tap from the power supply with a heavy-duty pair of alligator clips and none will be the wiser. But whatever it was, it was an eye-opener for me.

Ferrules for electric cables

I bought these 1.5mm diameter ferrules for electrical cables some time back. I normally crimp hese ferrules on electrical cables before I mount screw them into 13A plugs. These ferrules give the screws in the plugs something extra to grab on to. Admittedly, these were not cheap but they are very useful to us in the trade. I wonder how much they cost online?

CEE Form plug to PermaPlug 13A sockets

Have you ever been to a construction site where all they have are those CEE Form distros and you need to plug in a 13A plug? Well what you require is an adapter…of sorts. I made one here which is a CEE Form plug connected to a 13A PermaPlug cable tray that fits very nicely in my bag. These two are connected to each other with a 3-core 2.5mm cable. All I have to do is to pack this in my bag when I am going to constructions sites and voila! I have power for my devices. Always keep an “adapter” like this handy. You never know when you might need one!

EATON RCCB 40A

I bought this Eaton RCCB a couple of days back. I bought this because I think my house needs to have the RCCB changed as it has been 5 years since it was installed. It is general rule of thumb to check your RCCB regularly. And by regularly I mean pressing the test button every 6 months or earlier. And, after 5 years, change the RCCB.

When I bought this, I asked the shop seller where was this made in as I had never heard of the brand before. He told me that it was made in Europe. So I have no doubt that this RCCB will serve me well.

Prepaid power at the house I was staying in

I posted earlier that I stayed at my wife’s friends place, which was an ex-Council house, in the outskirts of London. When we stayed there, we told our friend that we would contribute in some way to the electricity of the house. He told us it was not needed but we insisted till he relented. So when I went to check on the meter to find out what the reading was, I found out that the house was using prepaid power. You can see the slot to the right of the meter where we insert a “key” to top up. What we did was to take the key and looked for an authorised agent that can insert credit into the key. In our case, it was a convenience store very close to the house that was an authorised top-up centre. Then we took the key back, plugged it into the meter and the credits transferred to the key at the shop were transferred into the meter, topping it up. It works in a similar fashion to topping up a prepaid SIM card on a phone.

The wiring there was pretty messy. I do not think that it would pass the strict standards here in Singapore as far as wiring is concerned. But it was an interesting experience as I had never topped up a prepaid meter before!

Electrical supply distribution

I saw this in one of my friend’s Facebook posts. Apparently, this picture was taken in Malaysia, presumably in a block of flats or a shophouse. You can see here that there is one incoming supply that is “spliced” and shared by 8 households. Pretty interesting if I do say myself. Looks like there are two meters that are modern and the rest are the analogue meters of old. You will not find this done here in Singapore that is for certain!

Hioki CLAMP ON AC/DC HiTESTER 3284

In my line of work, sometimes I come across old cables and wires when stripping down old AV equipment. Sometimes, I do not know if there is electricity coursing through those cables. The best thing to do so? Getting a clamp-on tester. That is why I was looking at getting this Hioki clamp-on tester. This Hioki HiTester 3284 is a 10A/100A AC/DC Clamp Meter with Continuity Check and Resistance Testing Capabilities. The Hioki is an AC/DC current and voltage clamp meter that also measures continuity and resistance. Since it can handle both AC and DC current, it will be very useful for me. It costs about $400 here in Singapore. That is not too expensive considering what your life is worth when you deal with live electrical wires!

E26 or E27 screw bulb socket adapters

A few days back at the wake of my wife’s uncle, I took a glance up at the temporary lights that they strung at the flat void deck. They lay a central festoon light cable where they attached some rather large fluorescent light bulbs. Some of the light bulb screw sockets had these socket adapters that they attached to Ceeform sockets for connection to floor-standing fans and the like. I was wondering where to get such adapters and I finally found them for sale online, with the picture above. I feel that these would be good for the toolbox in case I ever need to tap power from a festoon light socket.

New circuit breakers to replace the old

I bought some new circuit breakers to replace some of the old ones at my mother’s house. The old ones are pretty old and I am worried about how good they are at protection. I bought six of them for a pretty good price and I will try to install them sometime next week. Remember, always try to replace the old circuit breakers if they are more than ten years old. The ones at my mother’s place are much older than that!

Exposed live cables in a lamp-post

A few days ago, there was a news report about some kids that got electrocuted when they touched a lamp-post in a playground in Toa Payoh. This is nothing new. As you can see, this lamp-post above in Changi Business Park. The cables are all exposed here. I feel that the people in charge of these lamp-posts do some checks on the various lamp-posts around the island to make sure nothing like what happened in Toa Payoh happen again.