A universal plug socket... at last?

[ARWadsworth]

A BBC link below

[Tim]

[jgharston]

as old as Edison.

JGH

[Dave Liquorice]

get 110v, shove a UK 13A in you get 240v. Current up to the maximum for the plug inserted, so it's not just a glorfied shaver socket. Frequency is not quite so critcal.

[ARWadsworth]

Up dennis?

[Andy Champ]

Do you mean ES or SES? BC or SBC? Or is it GU10?

If he only needs two kinds of bulb he's lucky. Our old house was entirely BC, I kept it that way, and annoyed the missus by telling her sometimes she couldn't have lights because they weren't BC. I think this one has at least one of everything.

Andy

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , jgharston escribió:

Accuracy in reporting, they've heard of it.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

behind the times.

[jgharston]

It's on The World Service right now. My first thought in response to his: "why are plugs different" is "'cos the electricity is different".

Having a socket that will accept any plug won't magically convert it between 50/110/120/150/220/230/240v. He's lucky that he was in Mongolia that just happens to use

230v, and his UK appliance consumes 230v.

In a similar manner, my then-wife once killed my mobile phone charger by plugging it into her walkman equivalent. "But the plug fits!" Yeh, but it draws 4.5v @ 2A, and the charger supplies 9v @ 1A.

JGH

[NT]

sockets is their inability to provide enough contact area, making them a noncompliant major fire risk. Hence theyre seen primarily in 3rd world hotels.

NT

[Andrew Gabriel]

Also note that "ES" is a slightly different size in US and EU, such that it will sometimes work, and sometimes jam in the holder.

I have a couple of 500W ones, never used. I have used them as props in presentations.

Also have several 400W Mercury Vapour GES lamps, which are bigger.

[Owain]

in telephone exchanges.

You wouldn't want to plug your 50V soldering iron into 240V

Owain

[Terry Casey]

though ...

Something similar (bonded to a 13A plug) sold in pound shops as 'UK Visitor' adaptors ...

[Dave Liquorice]

bastard lamps to work with they don't half chuck out the heat and the amount of light is phenominal. Need that sort of thing when shooting in a glass fronted atrium to compete against the sun.

I've not had the pleasure of the 24kW tungsten jobbies:

[tim....]

In Britain it is common for hotels to have shaver sockets that accept all forms of two pin socket.

Do hotels in the rest of Europe provide shaver sockets that accepts anything except "German" plugs - nope!

If they can't be bothered to change something this simple why would they bother with the rest of the house

tim

[The Natural Philosopher]

48VDC is common enough on aircraft.

I remember working on a piece of kit that was able to handle anything between 48V DC and 250VAC on the same plug - no switches to select. Pretty neat SMPSU in that.

I'd love to see that capability extended down to 12VDC but it may be optimistic to expect it.

Mind you the RC model world has converters able to handle something like 7-50V inputs So it must be possible..

[NT]

Where uses 150v?

NT

[NT]

I thought as much.

I have vague recollections of seeing a 170v setting on old equipment occasionally, last seen on a 1970s projector in the early 90s. Am I dreaming, or was it once in use somewhere.

NT

[Tim Streater]

And carrier class routers run on it too, as well as other comms kit.

[John Williamson]

It might not be a continuous range, but I've got a universal laptop supply that will work on either 11 - 14 VDC, or 90 - 275 VAC, 40 - 70 Hz, without switching, although the DC is polarity sensitive and uses the same input cable. The output is also switchable from about 12 - 24V in steps. It also has a USB output that'll do an amp or so. I've never had the courage to plug it into a 24V DC supply.