Ring Circuit Radial Circuit Diagram

Radial socket outlet circuits are less common in uk dwellings as until recently the usual method was the ring circuit.

Ring circuit radial circuit diagram. Within the electrical industry the ring main circuit sometimes ring main or ring final circuit is an electrical wiring technique that is most commonly used in the uk. Floor areas of no more than 50m2 requires a 20 a fuse or miniature circuit breaker protection with 2 5 mm live and 1 5mm protective conductors or 1 5 mm if m i. It does not return to the consumer unit or fuse box as does the more popular circuit the ring main. The two diagrams show the difference between the radial and ring circuits.

As described above a radial circuit starts at the consumer unit connects to each socket outlet in turn and ends at the final socket outlet. A radial circuit must follow these rules in general. In a ring circuit simply put it the wiring is connected at both ends of the circuit. The new part of the circuit is shown in orange.

The main advantage of ring main circuit is if any single connector is broken or disconnected at any point in the circuit all the other sockets will still work because they will be being act as radial circuit and fed from the other end of the circuit. Electrical radial circuit wiring including the size of cable and mcb that should be used. The top diagram shows the existing radial circuit the bottom diagram shows the original radial circuit converted into a ring circuit. Ring circuits are wired with 2 5mm 2 cable and always have a 30amp fuse 32 amp mcb.

To explain a little further using sockets as an example a radial circuit runs from the consumer unit or fuse box out to one or more sockets that are. If the cables in your circuits are red and black please see multi point radial lighting circuit old cable colours. The diagrams below shows the new harmonised cable colours. Fig 1 shows what is referred to as a radial circuit sometimes called a loop in or multi point radial lighting circuit.