They were pretty common back in the 60's. They were not purpose specific but used for all manner of things.
That one appears to be connected the "wrong" way round, the female end should be on there not the male end. They were done away with on safety grounds years ago. It was possible to force them in with reverse polarity too.
My brother sent me these pictures of a cable he found today plugged in (but not switched on!) on MoD property (barrack block utility room).
Ignoring H&S, anyone know what the connector is actually for?
In message , Part Timer writes
Looks like an ordinary interconnecting plug, only the wrong side has been wired into the mains?
It's for prodding people who don't behave.
Bill
he strange plug is a 3 pin connector usually used on garden items (when coloured orange). I used to use them on extension leads since it was a bit neater than a 13 joiner. Rated at 5 amp ISTR.
Yes - 2 plugs on one lead --- mmm.
It's a 3 pin Duraplug, obviously it should be a female rather than a male, I use the 2pin versions on all my powertools and garden tools, the
2pin version will plug into a 3pin trailing socket, so I have a couple of extension leads of each type.They are getting a little harder to buy now than a few years back, but still available
En el artículo , Part Timer escribió:
It (the two-pin version) was on a Black and Decker lawnmower I had years ago. The bit of cable attached to the mower was short, about a foot long, with the male plug shown in your pic, and the rest of the cable was the long one with the mains 13A plug at one end and the female mating connector at the other.
I assumed it was intended to make stowing the mower easier, as you could disconnect the cable and store it separately. The connectors would also pull apart if the cable was tugged hard enough, a safety feature I suppose.
Should think they wouldn't be allowed now as the female end wasn't shuttered.
I wonder what rank the electrician was?
Similar thing happened to me in a major supermarket. We asked for 30 cables to be made up by the site electrician for PCs and screens, with a Electrak EPOS plug on one end (those square push and turn ones) and an IEC plug on 'tother her end.
The bozos put IEC male plugs on every one.
About the same time but in a different supermarket, there was a 13A dual gang socket next to an Electrak dual gang, the latter appeared to be dead, I had a PC and monitor plugged into it.
I swapped the cable on the monitor for a "normal" one and plugged it into one of the 13A sockets whereupon there was a pop and also a click from a nearby CU.
While waiting for some one "competent" to reset the RCBO, I went to my vehicle to fetch my meter, to see if my "hunch" was correct. Measured between two of the back box screws, on each socket. 240v AC.
Ouch.
Went and got the site electrician (the site was undergoing a refit) Told him to bring his test lamp with him (or whatever the modern instrument is called. The 13A sockets were correctly wired but the Electrak, having a differing pattern to the terminals had L&E reversed and the back box and screws were "earthed" to the live.
He showed me the paperwork where this installation had been supposedly tested.
Ouch indeed.
Did I mention exactly where this was?
The consultation room attached to a Pharmacy, these sockets could be used for wiring patients up to diagnostic devices.
Fortunatly the only thing that died was the graphics card in the PC.
It's a variation on a "Jesus Cord"[1]
[1] 2 13A plugs on each end of a flex - used to bridge one house supply to the house next door in the even of a single phase failure, or for cobbling a generator into the house's circuits.It actually looks a bit like a lawnmower cable end with the inline plug/socket the wrong way around. Only think wrong with that is all mowers I've seen are 2 pin double insulated...
My ancient Flymo (when the mowers were in a blue and white livery) uses a three pin version with the metal handle and the motor body earthed.
Which might be dumb. But any dumber than a 50:50mix of make and female?
You really are in Lala Land aren't you?
That first one is the electrical equivilent of a "Jesus Cord". Normally the plugs would both be the same type of mains plug. You sometimes see such Jesus Cords made up with 30 or more metres of cable to allow an obliging neighbour to supply your house with electricity when, for whatever reason, the elctric supply has been cut off.
Amazingly, I found a short Jesus Cord in a drawer in my recently deceased father's house about a year ago. I've no idea why he'd made up such a lethal accessory and since his alzeimers was very advanced, I never troubled him for an explanation. I confiscated it and recovered at least one of the plugs - I can't remember whether both plugs were of the rewirable type or just the one attached to a cable with moulded on plug.
I see now that the other 3 images are simply close ups of a fairly standard moisture proof cable extension connector (as shown in the last photo, the half that's intended to go on the end of the appliance cable).
What you have there is the less common three pin version of the more common 2 pin version used to extend electric lawnmower cables. The three pin female connector is compatable with the two pin male connector BTW. Whoever created that Jesus Cord must have had a death wish (possibly is already the proud owner of a Darwin Award, assuming he/she hasn't already bred more stupidity gene carriers).
Considering where it was discovered, that did cross my mind. The only thing that spoils it as 'Cattle Prod' is its extremely short cable. That doesn't preclude its use as such a torture device since it might have been intended to be used with a normally wired cable extension to make it easier to hide it out of sight.
If it's a temporary single-phase failure, what happens when your phase comes back on while you're still plugged into your neighbour's phase?
I thought the main purpose of those cords was to get free electricity from an unoccupied house next door (after breaking in).
There's a reason it's called a Jesus Cord.
But seriously - you'd have to open your main switch or you'd be trying to power 1/3 of the street anyway!
That too.
If you have an autotransformer which you want to be able to use from time to time either in a 110V country to produce 230V or in a 230V country to produce 110V, the easy way is to fit one type of socket to the 110V side of the transformer and the other type of socket to the
230V side. Then to use it you need either a cable with 110V plugs on each end, or a cable with 230V plugs on each send, depending on which country you're in.Of course to be safe when in use you should somehow clamp the plug to the socket on the autotransformer so that it can't be accidentally removed.
You won't get it to do both voltage conversions too well, transformer regulation means that the wrong way round it'll come out well below expected voltage. Some appliances may accept that, some won't
NT
I'll take your word for it, but I'm not going to try it at home. ;-)
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