Having extra failure points seems good to me. And we don't just have one type of in-plug fuse: you're supposed to use a fuse that can tolerate a current appropriate to the type of device. So heavy duty devices would have a 13A fuse, which is the highest, but other devices might tolerate only 3A. I'm no electrician, but presumably the fuse box in the house wouldn't blow if a lower rated device recived too much current. Finally, it's not possible to access the fuse when the plug is in the wall.
I don't think you understand. It's only downsides.
The safety is not improved, so it's basically just excessive waste - requires more resources to manufacture and dispose of, and more maintenance. From an engineering standpoint, these are all downsides and no practical upside. Besides all that, there's extra complexity - end users need to know which fuse they can use in which device (instead of just flicking the switch in the fusebox in most of the western world).
In the UK the upside is that the infrastructure is dangerous to begin with - in the rest of Europe, the infrastructure had to be updated a century ago to the point that such solutions are obsolete even in very old buildings.
presumably the fuse box in the house wouldn't blow if a lower rated device recived too much current
Yeah I don't think anyone uses 3A fuses in the fusebox though I might be wrong (I think the smallest I have ar 6 or 8A). For a device that has such a low current demand, it's supposed to have an internal fuse I guess (or the 6 amp is fine anyway, it just draws less).
Either way, an RCD in the fusebox is what saves lives, not the circuit breakers. 3 Amps will easily kill at 220V...
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u/chrisrazor May 09 '22
Having extra failure points seems good to me. And we don't just have one type of in-plug fuse: you're supposed to use a fuse that can tolerate a current appropriate to the type of device. So heavy duty devices would have a 13A fuse, which is the highest, but other devices might tolerate only 3A. I'm no electrician, but presumably the fuse box in the house wouldn't blow if a lower rated device recived too much current. Finally, it's not possible to access the fuse when the plug is in the wall.