Post by Sovereign on Feb 2, 2015 9:43:35 GMT
Here is a post I made on AoS as there was confusion between a spur and a radial which kep on raising its head. I thought I would put it up here as I find the topic of mains alterations very interesting. I know some of you have altered your hifi mains and some haven't .
I'm going to jump in here as there seems to be some confusion that I'm wanting to clear up.
What Marco is suggesting makes a lot of sense.
There is a big difference between a spur and a radial. A spur is not what you want to run your hifi from, a spur is a single length 0f 2.5mm T&E that is off a ring. You are wanting to power your Hifi from a radial which is a single power line straight from your consumer unit, and ideally nothing is drawing power from that radial except for your hifi.
The ultimate installation is a radial straight from the incoming mains tails to your property after the meter. I am no expert here, but I have been messing around with mains instals for some time. Nor am I qualified, but my instalation was carried out by one of the 17th edition NIC EIC electricians that work for me.
Below is a series of photographs and a few words of the ultimate mains installation IMHO.
This is my house consumer unit which you DO NOT want to connect your hifi to, even if you run a radial straight from it to your hifi.
Here is the outside of my property, the left white box is the electrical meter, where the tails come up from the ground. The small middle box houses a dedicated shut off switch to my hifi, not everyone would need this but due to the length of the radial, 21m, and the fact that it goes underground I need this to meet regs, and the box on the right is the gas meter; only to be tapped into if you want to give your hifi a more fiery musical presentation ;-)
This is inside the box on the left which houses the mains tails coming out of the ground. You can see the main house fuse kind of out of the picture on the left, which you want to make sure houses a 100A cartridge fuse, check if this is ok to do as 100A is not always appropriate. In this same box you can see the meter on the right. Under the meter is the most important box of all, a Henley block. The tails that come out of the meter go into the Henly block, out of the Henley block one set of tails goes to my house CU and the other set of tails goes to my hifi via a switch in the middle of the white boxes.
This is inside the small white middle box, dedicated to my hifi. You can see the tails from the house meter go into the bottom of the switch switch, out of the top of the switch you can see the blue. brown and earth which is the beginning of the radial that is a 10mm armoured that pinned to the side of the house then under the garden to a detached building which is Sovereign Towers.
Here you can see the 10mm armoured and the detatched property that is where I listen to tunes late into the night.
Here is the dedicated Hifi CU with both a RCD and MCBO. You can see the armoured radial coming up the wall and into the CU
Here is my Mother Trucker balanced mains unit. The grey wire is the power coming into it, the grey wire is wired straight into the MCBO of the dedicated CU. All connections are with Neutrik PowerCons. You can then see the other three wires, two black and one silver, which is the balanced power coming out of the MTBPS which freed my DAC, pre and power amps.
Obviously balanced power does not have to be used for this instal, that is just my preference. Hope this helps.
I'm going to jump in here as there seems to be some confusion that I'm wanting to clear up.
What Marco is suggesting makes a lot of sense.
There is a big difference between a spur and a radial. A spur is not what you want to run your hifi from, a spur is a single length 0f 2.5mm T&E that is off a ring. You are wanting to power your Hifi from a radial which is a single power line straight from your consumer unit, and ideally nothing is drawing power from that radial except for your hifi.
The ultimate installation is a radial straight from the incoming mains tails to your property after the meter. I am no expert here, but I have been messing around with mains instals for some time. Nor am I qualified, but my instalation was carried out by one of the 17th edition NIC EIC electricians that work for me.
Below is a series of photographs and a few words of the ultimate mains installation IMHO.
This is my house consumer unit which you DO NOT want to connect your hifi to, even if you run a radial straight from it to your hifi.
Here is the outside of my property, the left white box is the electrical meter, where the tails come up from the ground. The small middle box houses a dedicated shut off switch to my hifi, not everyone would need this but due to the length of the radial, 21m, and the fact that it goes underground I need this to meet regs, and the box on the right is the gas meter; only to be tapped into if you want to give your hifi a more fiery musical presentation ;-)
This is inside the box on the left which houses the mains tails coming out of the ground. You can see the main house fuse kind of out of the picture on the left, which you want to make sure houses a 100A cartridge fuse, check if this is ok to do as 100A is not always appropriate. In this same box you can see the meter on the right. Under the meter is the most important box of all, a Henley block. The tails that come out of the meter go into the Henly block, out of the Henley block one set of tails goes to my house CU and the other set of tails goes to my hifi via a switch in the middle of the white boxes.
This is inside the small white middle box, dedicated to my hifi. You can see the tails from the house meter go into the bottom of the switch switch, out of the top of the switch you can see the blue. brown and earth which is the beginning of the radial that is a 10mm armoured that pinned to the side of the house then under the garden to a detached building which is Sovereign Towers.
Here you can see the 10mm armoured and the detatched property that is where I listen to tunes late into the night.
Here is the dedicated Hifi CU with both a RCD and MCBO. You can see the armoured radial coming up the wall and into the CU
Here is my Mother Trucker balanced mains unit. The grey wire is the power coming into it, the grey wire is wired straight into the MCBO of the dedicated CU. All connections are with Neutrik PowerCons. You can then see the other three wires, two black and one silver, which is the balanced power coming out of the MTBPS which freed my DAC, pre and power amps.
Obviously balanced power does not have to be used for this instal, that is just my preference. Hope this helps.
