It all makes sense in that it confirms the crazy thing I couldn’t believe was true at the beginning - US appliances have the ability to sink a ton more current than they would ever need under normal operation, which seems like a safety issue. Would you want your electric toothbrush charger sinking 15A in some fault condition?
A UK device blows its own fuse under these circumstances. The wasted copper in every US appliance cord is just insult to injury.
> The rating on a UK ring circuit breaker is so high that you can literally melt significant quantities of steel without tripping the breaker
That’s fine, as long as everything is rated to that draw and doesn’t melt. If the wires couldn’t handle it then the breaker would be rated lower.
> certainly can turn typical appliance wiring incandescent, also without tripping the breaker.
And that’s where the fuse “shines”!
Seems like the UK method uses less copper and gives finer control in over current scenarios. I don’t see any benefits of the US style.
The US style also has much smaller and cheaper plugs, and the cords are all basically the same size anyway. I don’t recall any UK appliances being notably less bulky or anything either (though when running 220v, you can have electric kettles which aren’t lame, which is nice).
Notably, pretty much everywhere else in the world also uses similar branch circuit type designs and 220v and their plugs and appliances are also not notably more bulky either.
The difference in wire diameter between say 6amps and 15 amps isn’t that noticeable. 15 and 30 is.