13 amp plugs - memories

[Andrew Gabriel]

In China, you can find the socket equivalent to this, i.e. sockets which accept a wide range of different plugs. India also has sockets which can accept both 5A and 15A BS546 plugs.

[Ed Sirett]

What about the Earth Clamps to BS 95 (IIRC) or White Spriit to BS 60? Or are the numbers not approximately chronological?

[Grumpy owd man]

[Chris J Dixon]

round pin plugs & it

That brings back memories. ISTR that they were really tricky to wire up, and then get all the bits back in, only to find that you had forgotten to thread the cable through the rubber cover ;-(

Chris

[Andy Wade]

Earth clamps: current version is BS 951:1999 - original version was

1948, revised in '86.

White spirit: current version is BS 245:1976 - no earlier versions AFAICS.

BS 60 appears not to exist, not does BS 95.

The numbers were originally issued chronologically, but most with low numbers have been revised many times since publication.

BS 4 (structural steel sections) and BS 12 (Portland cement) were in use until relatively recently, but both have been superseded by ENs now.

Check for yourself at BS Online:

[<me9]

True, I could have worded it better. However, If the MK is wired up with equal lengths as per the instructions, then the earth is the tightest.

[meow2222]

re bayonet plugs

I still remember the 2A plug to 15A socket adaptor. But now I know why it was home made!

NT

[meow2222]

This reminds me of a sqwuare pin plug I had not long ago that had odd shaped pins, not : __ : |__|

but : __ : (__)

I dont remember what happened to it, probably got removed when the plugs were changed to sleeved type.

NT

[Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)]

What is the use of just the tops?

[Jim Gregory]

Any AC mains socket flying lead with an is dangerous,

plugged a splayed metal hairclip into both holes of an inviting 2-pin wood + ceramic + brass wall socket at home. A Big Flash and I recall I was sent flying. Must say....One of the more interesting and fascinating uk.d-i-y threads in a long time!

[Richard Conway]

Reminds me of a story a friend told me about a place he worked. He was in the workshop one day when the power went off. He walked back into the office to see a colleague sat there with a dripping wet IEC lead in hand dangling above his coffee. He looked sheepish and said "I just wondered what would happen!"

[Richard Conway]

Oh dear...

[Jim Gregory]

Some specials were used in communal areas of premises, like hallways and landings in flats, where the landlords allowed power consunption only for cleaners and maintenance staff . There was another restricted-use design where all oblong pins are oriented

90degs to the familiar 13A setup.

[Andrew Gabriel]

A 2A plug on a 4-way trailing 13A socket block was standard student kit in my time. Providing no one else down my side of the corridor was drawing much power, the 10A MCB for all the

2A sockets would handle boiling the kettle ;-)

[David Hansen]

On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 13:52:05 GMT someone who may be "Jim Gregory" wrote this:-

Somewhere in the family is a 1944 Royal Navy gunnery handbook. It illustrates a few points with cartoons. One of these has a cartoon of a sailor with a long spark coming out of the ship and making contact with his nose. His cap, hair, arms and legs are flying in various directions and he has jumped above deck level. The caption says not to disconnect electrical circuits.

Another way of looking at things is to picture a large power station and imagine this is sitting in the socket waiting to get out. Not quite accurate, but a good illustration of the need for caution.

[<me9]

Walsall guage. We used them at work, often with a brass or copper insert replacing a fuse (to feed fixed equipment from a single suitiably fused socket). I did see a version with L and N both fused.

The worst ones were D&S? which had a screw in fuse as the live pin. If loose or stripped it often remained in the socket producing a /slight/ hazard!

[Andrew Gabriel]

Sounds like a warning specifically related to DC supplies. With DC, the current didn't stop flowing merely because you pulled the plug out. That is the origin of the switches on all our sockets today. By 1944, it's unlikely many if any people still had DC supplies at home, so if they were present on ships, people would have become unfamiliar with their specific dangers.

[Tim S]

Did you go to York Uni too?

Tim

[Andy Dingley]

Only at weekends - I think it was a friend of mine (Rob T. - early '80s) who'd made most of those adapters.

I was at Hull. One hall of res had sockets in the rooms with tiny sub-kettle breakers and electric fan heaters under a built-in wired through real 13A sockets. There was a brisk trade in suitable extension leads there too.

[Andrew Gabriel]

No, London, but I think they were pretty much all the same in that respect.

The little hardware shop outside the hall of residence sold the 2A plugs at several quid a shot. I bought 400 of them and sold them at cost, 18p each, and they were very nice robust Crabtree ones. I did the same next year, but I couldn't get the nice Crabtree ones anymore, and ended up with some rather inferior make, of which a few percent broke when people fitted them, and I ended up slightly out of pocket.