13 amp plugs - memories

[Jim Gregory]

That's the fella. Luminous? Are those still made, I wonder? Jim

[Mike Clarke]

Those were the days, we had a scary extension lead with 5A 2 pin plug at one end and a BC adapter at the other, very nasty when left lying around without the BC plug in it. Still not as bad as the extension lead I once came across with 5A 2 pin male at each end.

Had one of those too with a string switch for the spare way, very useful for the makeshift photographic darkroom. Red 15W pigmy bulb in the main socket and normal bulb in the switched one.

While we're on the nostalgia trip, does anyone know why 3 pin plugs of yesteryear used to have a small hole beside the earth pin?

[David Hansen]

On Sat, 07 Jan 2006 22:43:42 +0000 someone who may be Tim S wrote this:-

I have just put some away for another year. Acceptably safe if used by those that know what they are doing.

I also have one of the BC two way adapters people have discussed (rated at 1A BTW) on my desk. I sometimes threaten to put it somewhere in order to frighten the "safety" mob.

[Andy Dingley]

Be careful of sloppy wording in such instructions!

Around 1985 I was working for BT. Shrouded plug pins were a new thing and BT, being BT, were keen on keeping us all safe. So an edict was delivered such that all plugs would now be cut off and replaced by these new Plugtops, Safety, Shrouded, No 23.

We'd just received delivery of a couple of hundred (literally) terminals

- fitted with the now commonplace removable IEC lead with a moulded plug at each end and of course a shrouded plug. But the great edict on safety said that _all_ plugs needed to be cut off and replaced - even these brand new ones that were already shrouded.

Fortunately sense ruled in the end - but it was no end of a struggle to find someone mighty enough to stick their neck out and defy a directive on _SAFETY_, even when it was clearly ridiculous.

[Nick Atty]

We had a piece of wood with (at least) a 5A, 13A and 15A socket on it on the end of a long flex that could always reach a 15A somewhere, so we could run anything. It was that very flexible rubbery flex that you used to have on things like drills - great stuff.

And, of course, everyone had a pile on 15A to 2x5A+15A adaptors.

Just the same.

No, but you could use it to run a thin earth wire out to provide an earth for a "crystal" (germanium diode, actually) set.

No wonder growing up with this lot we look at Part P with disdain.

[Derek ^]

Not with certainty, but before ferrite rods many valve wirelesses had sockets for "aerial" and "earth".

I have seen the earth socket connected to the earth connection on a 15 amp plug via the small hole.

Not a very satisfactory arrangement from the safety point of view I would have thought, the wire could become detached from the earth terminal and touch the live which might result in the radio aerial becoming live at mains potential. Since folks would often use things like the curtain wire as a makeshift aerial this would not be "a good thing".

I have heard from old Radio/TV repairer colleagues of a wire from the "Earth" terminal on a wireless being taken to a milk bottle full of garden soil.

DG

[Frank Erskine]

That only worked for a portable wireless.

:-)

[Derek ^]

The IEC free socket at the other end was probably a more serious safety hazard.

My employer once did a lot of business with ICI Pharmaceuticals supplying them with lab instruments. In all ICI labs the IEC leadsets were banned unless the free socket had been made captive in the fixed plug with a wire frame arrangement.

Reason: One such lead had dropped out of the back of a small bench instrument, (not one of ours !) fallen into a vessel of liquid and someone had been electrocuted.

IME some of them are indeed not retained very well.

DG

[Rob Morley]

Someone already posted a link to one of those.

[Dave]

I used to play a guitar in a group in the sixties and I was the band/group electrician and when I discovered that very same plug, it took away all problems of the various sockets that I would encounter, at the booking we got. It made life a lot easier for me :-)

Up to finding it, I had to wire/re-wire plugs at virtually every event. This meant that the mains cable was getting more and more ragged at each plug change.

Ah! how dangerously we lived in those days :-)

Dave

[Jim Gregory]

The socket-retaining steel wire clip (hinged into place) can be retrofitted to most CEE22 IEC male receptacles on panels, unless rivetted!, but check that the profile and shape of the free socket used must be compatible with the wire's design. I used Belling-Lee or Bulgin rewireable 6A sockets with rubber glands twenty+ years ago. Now they are moulded-on leads, so I suppose there are appropriate clips to secure in place. Jim Jim

[Nick Atty]

Similarly, it does baffle me (as someone with two small children in the house) that I have to have shrouded pins, shutters on sockets and am constantly deluged by DHS propaganda to put dummy plugs in sockets.

Yet at the end of the cable - for example for a laptop PSU - there is often a small (cassette recorder style) two pin open socket, just right to be unplugged and sucked.

[sponix]

I'm rather annoyed that you can't still buy them. If anyone knows of a source then please let me know!

sponix

[sponix]

Also wrong about the three round pin plugs. IIRC there were three types, 3a, 5a and 15a..

sponix

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 8 Jan 2006 18:40:57 +0000 (UTC) someone who may be Dave wrote this:-

Wouldn't it have been easier, if more expensive, to standardise on a plug and socket for use within the band and then make two sorts of short adapter leads to go from the other sorts of socket to your standard?

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 19:04:42 +0000 someone who may be sponix wrote this:-

The smallest type was/is rated at 2A.

[Mark Carver]

Indeed, though as a lad I used to build crystal sets and other radios, connecting to the 'mains' earth using a single wire into a 13A plug would make the reception come alive !

[Andrew Gabriel]

and the fourth one was 30A.

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 18:59:18 +0000 someone who may be Nick Atty wrote this:-

Or have a screwdriver/paperclip sized metal object stuck into the unshuttered contacts.

A member of my family gave up experimenting with electricity a long time ago. Electricity had not been installed in the house long (the house being in Norway, two pin unshuttered sockets, 220V AC, skirting board level) when he decided to see what would happen if he put a knitting needle into the socket. The holes of these are invitingly knitting needle size.

[Frank Erskine]

There was also a 10A one, but I can't remember if that was 2 or 3 pin. Possibly there were both.