Blue Mains electric plug and socket

[Dustydog]

After two weeks hooked upto a 16 amp supply, using all the usual standard appliances, heater on 2000 watts quite a lot, I had a disaster saturday morning. Having safely , easily removed the blue plug from the EHU the connection at the caravan end was too hot to hold. The plug seems to be permanently welded to the socket. In the end I had to cut the orange feed cable. Fortunately the annual service is due soon so a new plug and socket will be fitted.
None of the circuit breakers tripped. Anyone else had this problem?

 

[sparkeyboy60]

Hi sounds like a loose connection in either the mains lead input plug or the input socket on the caravan.This will cause a build up of heat under load and can cause the two to weld together. Only cure is to replace both and make sure all connections are tight.You will probably see heat damage to the cable where it enters the plug and or socket

 

[Dustydog]

Have a good laugh.

.
The seized plug and socket is stopping me from using the mover. I can't access the master switch. Bloody hard by yourself to line up the Al-ko wheel locks with just the car. GRRRRRRRRR. .

 

[WatsonJohnG]

Could you use crocodile clips on the switch terminals at the rear(maybe a jump lead)?

 

[Dustydog]

John
Yes I probably could but admit I didn't think of it

.
Anyway I manged to get teh Al-ko locks fitted, not easy . All gets fixed at the dealer before our Christmas venture.

 

[FrintonMike]

I had the same problem two years ago when the snow was thick on the ground. I also had to cut the lead and have a new inlet socket fitted. The dealers said they had only come accross it once before and was caused by having too many electrical appliances on at once, well it was cold

 

[sparkeyboy60]

Shouldnt really be possible to overload the input socket as the protectve device (circuit breaker) at the hook up supply point should be the same (16 Amp ) or less than the rating of the socket ie 16 Amps.

 

[Dustydog]

Shouldnt really be possible to overload the input socket as the protectve device (circuit breaker) at the hook up supply point should be the same (16 Amp ) or less than the rating of the socket ie 16 Amps.

Once the dealer replaces the offending parts we can ascertain exactly what happened. None of the brekers tripped. As i said before we were consistantly drawing a lot of power but then we have done so many times in the past particularly in the past without a problem.

 

[ChrisUK]

Must be a poor contact in the plug / socket or the connections inside the plug / socket loose. Even 5 amps through a poor contact would overheat the connection. Note we are looking at an overheating problem here, not an overload problem. Overload would have been protected by the breakers.
I must check mine!

 

[Dustydog]

Must be a poor contact in the plug / socket or the connections inside the plug / socket loose. Even 5 amps through a poor contact would overheat the connection. Note we are looking at an overheating problem here, not an overload problem. Overload would have been protected by the breakers.
I must check mine!

Hi Chris
It was very hot! The power had been conneccted for two whole weeks but no breakers tripped.
SWMBO is very good and always turns off the room and water heater before using her hairdryer!

 

[WatsonJohnG]

Could it be that you had some of this super high power electric that we had in France this year
Look what it did to the cable

But seriously I had a polarity change over switch for many years until on inspection I discovered that the screw connectors plastic had melted