1 hour ago, lol-lol said:

Yes a nominal 220v according to the manual.

Have a multi meter which can read up to 750 volts but a bit scared to try and measure.

Suspect the 220 can fall to 210 or lower under high load and then further losses in the extension lead.

There is the temperature effect took ie when starting up when warm ie it is 30 -35 C and then it warms up another 5 or 10 C in operation which will further reduce the delivery voltage and therefore power in watts.

Yes it will, and there by stands a potential fire risk right there in the extension lead. So many of them are only rated at 8 or 10amps because of cable sizes used. Many of the cheaper ones are 1 or 1.5mm cable, and if it was made in China etc, that cable is often steel not copper, which is another problem area.

21 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

1.5 or 2.5 mm cable would far better, the losses would greatly less. I take it the 220V is at the consumer unit, or is at the output end of the extension le

On 27/06/2026 at 22:22, Graham Butcher said:

Yes it will, and there by stands a potential fire risk right there in the extension lead. So many of them are only rated at 8 or 10amps because of cable sizes used. Many of the cheaper ones are 1 or 1.5mm cable, and if it was made in China etc, that cable is often steel not copper, which is another problem area.

One can use aluminium as an alternative to copper of course and if one does use lots of strands one xan reduce eddies which crank up losses.

Heat is the enemy and the extension is was using to charge the EVs warns current should be a measely 5A ie 1200 watts which shows how the poor heat dispersion when the reel is wound.

Another reminder of our new world was when I was having the second wallbox fitted abd the National Grid guys came and said they were reducing by main fuse size from 100A to 80A due to average house and ring main temperatures being higher it was a safety measure to lower the fuse size as more electricity was being used in summer rather than the winter as was !

13 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

One can use aluminium as an alternative to copper of course and if one does use lots of strands one xan reduce eddies which crank up losses.

Heat is the enemy and the extension is was using to charge the EVs warns current should be a measely 5A ie 1200 watts which shows how the poor heat dispersion when the reel is wound.

Another reminder of our new world was when I was having the second wallbox fitted abd the National Grid guys came and said they were reducing by main fuse size from 100A to 80A due to average house and ring main temperatures being higher it was a safety measure to lower the fuse size as more electricity was being used in summer rather than the winter as was !

Aluminum is not a good replacement, you need an increase in size and the terminals need to be checked regularly for tightness. It has been banned in UK regs because of these issues. I have seen extension leads still wound up, being used and they have burst into fire as a result.

2 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

Aluminum is not a good replacement, you need an increase in size and the terminals need to be checked regularly for tightness. It has been banned in UK regs because of these issues. I have seen extension leads still wound up, being used and they have burst into fire as a result.

I gather aluminium is being used in several areas as a replacement for copper as it being much cheaper and lighter and as long as one compensates for the lower ability to transport current for the same diameter it can be a good replacement.

It also can be that when scrapped it is less hassle to split metals as chassis etc maybe aluminium.

21 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

I gather aluminium is being used in several areas as a replacement for copper as it being much cheaper and lighter and as long as one compensates for the lower ability to transport current for the same diameter it can be a good replacement.

It also can be that when scrapped it is less hassle to split metals as chassis etc maybe aluminium.

Aluminium is trivalent so requires much more electricity to separate from its ore, so its lower weight has to be offset against its higher energy requirement to separate.

8 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

Aluminium is trivalent so requires much more electricity to separate from its ore, so its lower weight has to be offset against its higher energy requirement to separate.

was a long time ago but think it was being trialled for power lines when copper went silly expensive and being lighter one could have pylons further apart ie less of them. Also use in cars making recycling easier.

All such things worth reviewing periodically for cost and technical reasons.

The world's richest man wants cars to do 48v rather than a nominal 12v also to "phase out" AC for DC everywhere. I think he might think he is Nicola Tesla reborn !

One of the biggest problems with aluminium is that us both softer and at the same time is less resilient to bending / flexing making it much more difficult to terminate. Hence all terminals must be checked on a regular basis to ensure their correct tightness. It also cannot be soldered and it also a far lower melting point. I also seem to call that it stretches far easier so that it would require more pylons per mile to reduce the stretch induced by warm weather and wind loading.

It was trailed once for transmission lines and rejected.

8 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

One of the biggest problems with aluminium is that us both softer and at the same time is less resilient to bending / flexing making it much more difficult to terminate. Hence all terminals must be checked on a regular basis to ensure their correct tightness. It also cannot be soldered and it also a far lower melting point. I also seem to call that it stretches far easier so that it would require more pylons per mile to reduce the stretch induced by warm weather and wind loading.

It was trailed once for transmission lines and rejected.

Apparently 90% of power lines use aluminium rather than copper.

Steel core to give it strength.

21 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

was a long time ago but think it was being trialled for power lines when copper went silly expensive and being lighter one could have pylons further apart ie less of them. Also use in cars making recycling easier.

All such things worth reviewing periodically for cost and technical reasons.

The world's richest man wants cars to do 48v rather than a nominal 12v also to "phase out" AC for DC everywhere. I think he might think he is Nicola Tesla reborn !

The reason for the switch to 48volts you mention is because copper is so expensive as EVs use so much of it and with the higher voltage he is able reduce cable sizes massively so reduce the amount of it being used for normal functions in a car. The other issue here is that the electronics and there is so much of them in EVs and printed circuit boards all need copper to make the tracks. So EVs are becoming a real drain on the Earth's natural resources but nobody is willing to talk about it.

At least the person you refer to is attempting to redress that in part at least but I suspect his real reason is to A, reduce the amount used, and B, save weight as EVs are heavier than their combustion counterparts. But I suspect that his real resin is that he can reduce his costs and hence enrich his bottom line.

13 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

Apparently 90% of power lines use aluminium rather than copper.

Steel core to give it strength.

Oh, so it would seem apparently. My info on that aspect was out of date.

Octopus teaming up with world's largest battery maker CATL...

This Youtuber seems to say renters can have these batteries, we will see, I think there is a battle to be had here.

Greg of Octopus is doing 3 year stint with UK government so has some influence....

Smaller range, Nook, might bee able to transfer some charge to an EV, Colossus is more for that I suppose but also reverse charging possible with these setups and the right EV.

Edited 19 hours ago19 hr by lol-lol

Good news for UK Balcony / Plug in solar to start catching up to Germany etc with its multi-million install of this tech.

Report attached....

I wonder how much it can be used and crucially enough to provide some charge to EVs as well as power all the home electricity needs instantly during the day and via charged battery for nighttime using the freely harvested solar and charging shoe box sized batteries to store and use electricity when cheap so bills much smaller. Pay back 2 to 3 years.

Plug-in-solar-PV-study.pdf

Edited 16 hours ago16 hr by lol-lol

17 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

Good news for UK Balcony / Plug in solar to start catching up to Germany etc with its multi-million install of this tech.

Report attached....

I wonder how much it can be used and crucially enough to provide some charge to EVs as well as power all the home electricity needs instantly during the day and via charged battery for nighttime using the freely harvested solar and charging shoe box sized batteries to store and use electricity when cheap so bills much smaller. Pay back 2 to 3 years.

Plug-in-solar-PV-study.pdf

It is important to understand that is a government commissioned report and is therefore biased and designed to push this forward as another means of working towards net zero. It is NOT a report compiled by the British Standards Institute nor is it one by the Institute of Electrical Engineers who are the body that writes the wiring regulations that every electrical installation must comply with to fully approved. Any deviation from them can and mist certainly would negate any insurance claim on the building or any shock protection claim.

So as an electrical engineer, I urge anyone tempted to use such a system to seriously consider the implacations should anything go wrong.

I personally always say to follow the money, and see just who it is that actually benefits from any such reports and claims. In this case to my mind it clearly is our government as a means of propping the failing net zero mandate. They could not risk leaving to the existing organisations who only have your interests at heart.

This system is akin to having a standby generator plugged in to power up in the event of a power failure. There you have to have special circuitry installed to prevent power exiting the building back to the grid which would put engineers working locally to repair the grid at risk of electrocution. There is no such system with this balcony solar, it is my view dangerous to both external people trying reconnect the grid, and also dangerous to people using the system.

Edited 16 hours ago16 hr by Graham Butcher

12 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

It is important to understand that is a government commissioned report and is therefore biased and designed to push this forward as another means of working towards net zero. It is NOT a report compiled by the British Standards Institute nor is it one by the Institute of Electrical Engineers who are the body that writes the wiring regulations that every electrical installation must comply with to fully approved. Any deviation from them can and mist certainly would negate any insurance claim on the building or any shock protection claim.

So as an electrical engineer, I urge anyone tempted to use such a system to seriously consider the implacations should anything go wrong.

I personally always say to follow the money, and see just who it is that actually benefits from any such reports and claims. In this case to my mind it clearly is our government as a means of propping the failing net zero mandate. They could not risk leaving to the existing organisations who only have your interests at heart.

This system is akin to having a standby generator plugged in to power up in the event of a power failure. There you have to have special circuitry installed to prevent power exiting the building back to the grid which would put engineers working locally to repair the grid at risk of electrocution. There is no such system with this balcony solar, it is my view dangerous to both external people trying reconnect the grid, and also dangerous to people using the system.

A couple of million Germans and several million other Europeans are running this fine.

We do UK electrical networks are inferior in some ways ie only 13A sockets instead of 16A which is the UK norm for heavier duty outlets in Europe.

I do not see the commissioning of the reports as trying to push on plug in solar in the UK but more to make sure the UK government does not get burnt by consequences that pop up later. Still more to do as the report states and many of us are generating our our electricity already, not from roof top solar and powerwall type batteries but by exactly this sort of tech but we are not feeding back through wall sockets but via shoebox batteries that link between the solar and the power hungry devices like our fridge freezers and TVs.

looks like it is making progress and and at quite a pace and we should be looking to not fall so far behind what many other countries are doing and put up with high energy bills because most of our energy companies, not Octopus, are profit maximising entities.

@lol-lol I'm familiar with the European practise having worked a number of years for Hager Electrical and attended many training sessions they run and indeed gave given many such sessions to electrical contractors here in the UK. There are many practises they adopt over there including the use round flexes as a permanent feed and suitable for embedding within building fabric.

Having been in the industry all of my working life, I can tell you that the UK system is the best. I also worked for Crabtree Electrical for around 15 years and they have one of the very few electrical test labs approved to test equipment to complete destruction. Many manufacturers used to pay for their services and believe me, what your perception of other product and wiring practises does not actually stand up to what ours demands and proves to the best.

This is not the place to debate this in depth, I have voiced my opinion and warned others that they adopt these things at their own risks. Solar can be good but it also carries some risks and one is they do not like extreme heat with some catching fire and others failing to work in the heatwave. So people should either wait for full safety tests and approval for use by our own legislators or take a risk, their choice to make.

14 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

@lol-lol I'm familiar with the European practise having worked a number of years for Hager Electrical and attended many training sessions they run and indeed gave given many such sessions to electrical contractors here in the UK. There are many practises they adopt over there including the use round flexes as a permanent feed and suitable for embedding within building fabric.

Having been in the industry all of my working life, I can tell you that the UK system is the best. I also worked for Crabtree Electrical for around 15 years and they have one of the very few electrical test labs approved to test equipment to complete destruction. Many manufacturers used to pay for their services and believe me, what your perception of other product and wiring practises does not actually stand up to what ours demands and proves to the best.

This is not the place to debate this in depth, I have voiced my opinion and warned others that they adopt these things at their own risks. Solar can be good but it also carries some risks and one is they do not like extreme heat with some catching fire and others failing to work in the heatwave. So people should either wait for full safety tests and approval for use by our own legislators or take a risk, their choice to make.

I would love to have 3 phase like so many European countries do as well as 16A as the normal socket output.

Solar panels as well as batteries are tested and have tens of millions of examples running in much higher temperatures than the UK so I am not worried in that regard.

Their efficiency can drop a bit in high temperatures and in some super hot places they do a bit of water cooling which restores their peak efficiency. As with tve batteries just amazed how robust they are. Plugged in, not plugged in, hitting maximum capacity of the batteries and the battery stops the panels adding power no problem. Cooling of the batteries seems very conservative with the fans kicking in to cool the cells regularly when temps on high side. Since China is the world supplier of so many electrical devices from small devices to cars, trucks etc and in to so many markets ie cold to very hot, I am pleasantly surprised at their quality. Not surprised they have come to dominate most consumer markets.

Edited 14 hours ago14 hr by lol-lol

@lol-lol there is nothing stopping you have 3 phase supply if you are willing to pay for it I think. Trouble is that many are completely unaware of the hazards associated with it, you may well be, but others not so.

When I rewired my parents house they had nightstorage heaters installed and as they were on a overhead supply, single phase to 4 houses, when they came on, there was a voltdrop. I had 3 phase put on split the loading over all 3, taking care to ensure the sockets, cooker etc in each room etc were all on the same phase to reduce the risk of having 415volts at socket level.

But why would you want 16amp sockets?

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

@lol-lol there is nothing stopping you have 3 phase supply if you are willing to pay for it I think. Trouble is that many are completely unaware of the hazards associated with it, you may well be, but others not so.

When I rewired my parents house they had nightstorage heaters installed and as they were on a overhead supply, single phase to 4 houses, when they came on, there was a voltdrop. I had 3 phase put on split the loading over all 3, taking care to ensure the sockets, cooker etc in each room etc were all on the same phase to reduce the risk of having 415volts at socket level.

But why would you want 16amp sockets?

My third EV charger ie the Granny cable, has a 16A setting ad do many of these devices sold in the UK. Dont think they disable it for the UK sales. I could change a twin socket to a Commando 16A socket. Be nice to maximise EV charging when the price goes negative.

It could mean 15 KWs plus house load which would push the 80A main fuse those nice people from the Grid reduced me to.

Edited 9 hours ago9 hr by lol-lol

This was an interesting repair and highlights the problems with EVs which have left idle for an extended length of time, so you most definitely do not want to get yourself incarcerated at His Majesty's pleasure. When you come out, you will have a sizeable bill to get your car back running again.

There seems to be some strong clutching of straws and histrionics from the anti EV people if that video is anything to go by.

40 minutes ago, Lee01 said:

There seems to be some strong clutching of straws and histrionics from the anti EV people if that video is anything to go by.

If people cannot understand and accept that as a car lover, I'm going to have a strong interest in all cars regardless of their drivetrain.

As an electrical engineer, I'm naturally going to be interested in EVs, but currently not to the extent that I would have one until the bugs have been eliminated.

Those that have EVs, I defend their right to have them if it was their free choice.

I and others object to being labelled as anti-EV; we are not. We are against being forced to accept second-hand cars because new ICE cars are being phased out.

Imagine (if you can) EVs were the norm and they were being withdrawn and those who wanted to have a new car were being forced to have an ICE car and your freedom of choice was removed. I cannot for a single minute accept that you would be happy.

Now if people cannot see and accept that I'm being 100% genuine, then it is they who have the problem and closed minds.