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Power bank blowing fuses?

Lisa Miles
Hi all


I have a question I hope some of you might know the answer to.


We've recently moved over from a builders electricity supply to a domestic supply on our new build house in France. The electrics have all been checked out and signed off by the Consuel.


I have a two port USB powerbank manufactured by a well known battery manufacturer (?) and I was trying to charge it up while I was there using a native two pin USB charger plug. It basically fried the charger plug but didn't trip the fuse on the main board... 


I then plugged it in to a four socket extension lead (two pin plug to three pin sockets) using a three pin charger plug I have. It blew the extension lead but again didn't trip the fuse on the main board. 


At first I thought it must be a fault with the powerbank but  when I got back to the UK, I plugged it into my usual charger and it charged up as normal... ??


What do you think the problem could be? 

Parents
  • 0

    Also when you say 2 pin and 3 pin, are these actually, or really double insulated ?



    I guess Lisa's referring to the usual French plugs as "2-pin" - they're actually part of a 3-pin system - just that the French like to have the earth pin sticking out of the wall sockets rather than sticking out of the plug - so the plugs appear to be 2-pin, even the ones correctly connected to 3-core flex.


    French L-N polarity may be reversed



    French sockets don't really do polarity. While, unlike Schuko sockets, you can't put a (3-contact) French plug in 'upside down' - there isn't any guarantee which of the pins are L and N. Originally (like Schuko) things may have been fed from a 220V-between-two-lines system so polarity wasn't  a consideration, then as I understand it an unofficial convention grew up the N would be on the left but as it wasn't in their wiring regs nothing was guaranteed. Allegedly it was then incorporated into their regs, but due to a mix-up between 'looking into the plug' and 'looking into the socket' the wrong diagram was published in the regulations, which didn't really help. They might have fixed that now, I don't know. 


    What are the 'monitors' that went out actually monitoring ?



    Monitors as in "TV screen" for computers? If they all went dead (and the mains supply was still on) where was the break?


      - Andy.
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  • 0

    Also when you say 2 pin and 3 pin, are these actually, or really double insulated ?



    I guess Lisa's referring to the usual French plugs as "2-pin" - they're actually part of a 3-pin system - just that the French like to have the earth pin sticking out of the wall sockets rather than sticking out of the plug - so the plugs appear to be 2-pin, even the ones correctly connected to 3-core flex.


    French L-N polarity may be reversed



    French sockets don't really do polarity. While, unlike Schuko sockets, you can't put a (3-contact) French plug in 'upside down' - there isn't any guarantee which of the pins are L and N. Originally (like Schuko) things may have been fed from a 220V-between-two-lines system so polarity wasn't  a consideration, then as I understand it an unofficial convention grew up the N would be on the left but as it wasn't in their wiring regs nothing was guaranteed. Allegedly it was then incorporated into their regs, but due to a mix-up between 'looking into the plug' and 'looking into the socket' the wrong diagram was published in the regulations, which didn't really help. They might have fixed that now, I don't know. 


    What are the 'monitors' that went out actually monitoring ?



    Monitors as in "TV screen" for computers? If they all went dead (and the mains supply was still on) where was the break?


      - Andy.
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