Hedge Trimmer - One Wire or Extension Cable?


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The other day my fianc?e was cutting the hedge and all of a sudden the trimmer stopped.  She didn't cut through the cable.

It's not the newest trimmer in the world, but it works.  Electric.  Cables in the cable are brown and blue, so no green and yellow here.

 

The cable already had been cut twice (once by her, I must add!), but I ensured the wires were fine and we've used it a few times that way.  However she thinks my tape must have come apart and the wires touched.

 

The hedge trimmer had a 3A fuse, which blew.

 

It was plugged into an extension reel, which also blew the 3A fuse.  The extension cable was plugged into an RCD, which was plugged into another extension cable, then into the wall.

 

The trimmer now has a cable length of about an arms length, if that.

 

 

 

I am thinking:

 

1) I could just buy some new cable and wire the trimmer a new cable up to about 15m or so.

Trimmer > RCD > Wall

Cost: ~?10

 

2) Re-fashion a home-made extension cable that sees little use, which is about 7m long.  Then when using the trimmer, I would only need to use one extension cable.  The cable is heavy duty though, much thicker than the original one on the trimmer.

Trimmer > RCD > Extension > Wall

Cost: FREE!

 

 

I would prefer one single cable but then the purpose bought extension reel would be wasted.

 

What would you do?

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Wire in a new cable, you never know you might need the extension for christmas lights in december, or to hover the car out or even host a bouncy castle in your garden.

 

Or better yet, go full brazilian and burn the hedge down and put in a fence, then put your feet up for the amount of time it would have taken to trim it :p

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Have you replaced the fuses and ensured it actually still works ? So its not the motor that blew and took out the fuses?

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Yeah, everything now works, so it's not a motor or any other kind of problem.

 

I have three extension cables:

 

ORANGE - I use this when mowing the lawn

REEL - Used for pressure washing / cleaning out the car / hedge trimming / anything else outside

2 PLUG - I did make this for outside but realised I didn't buy enough cable so we use it for odd things around the home but can easily do without.

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How do you guys rate wiring size in the UK? For instance: I would replace the entire cable with no less than 12 gauge wiring dependent on the length. If you go longer than 300 ft you might want to consider 10 or 8. 

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Yeah i would reqire the trimmer with a long cable

 

 

Extension cables plugged into other extenson cables is never good

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How do you guys rate wiring size in the UK? For instance: I would replace the entire cable with no less than 12 gauge wiring dependent on the length. If you go longer than 300 ft you might want to consider 10 or 8. 

 

AC power, the length of the cable doesn't affect the size. Only the wattage. Most outdoor cables over here are 2.5 square anyway, but for a trimmer a 1.5 would be more than enough.

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AC power, the length of the cable doesn't affect the size. Only the wattage. Most outdoor cables over here are 2.5 square anyway, but for a trimmer a 1.5 would be more than enough.

Another for instance. We had a brick saw (back when I was bricklayer) and it ran on 220V. We attached an 150' extension cord 14 gauge on it and it melted the cord.The electrician on the site said it was because the wire was too small for that distance.  Then, we had a 250' cord made with 10 gauge wire and had no problems. Could be the length had nothing to do with it but the size of the wire.I mean, we could have had the same 14 gauge wire at 3' and it would have melted as well.

Thanks for the answer though!  :)

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