- Joined
- Feb 3, 2012
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- 191
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- 5
I'm having another one of my crazy thought processes that I'd like help clearing up please. This example is completely hyperthetical so please give some consideration for that. If for example a circuit was designed very badly and a length of 1.5mm t+e was used for supplying a 8kw shower and the circuit was protected by a 40A breaker. Obviously this is ridiculous but I'm trying to understand what's going on in the conductors. The cable will be massively overloaded due to the load and in result will become very hot, maybe even melt. Now what I want to understand is, is the over current causing the 230v pressure to struggle with pushing such a large load down a small conductor and in result the voltage drops even more resulting in more current being pulled trying to take its place (ohms law) so is this a vicious cycle as even more voltage is dropped with the increase of current trying to compensate??? Also as low voltages are less of a threat to us in shock terms, how come when there's a massive volt drop and current increase the cable has such incredible thermal effects and melts? When at that voltage probably wouldn't shock us?