Mains extension leads - daisy-chaining

[Colin Bignell]

Although, unless you are working a really long way away from any socket, the length of cable on a multi-way trailing outlet is likely to be between one and two metres.

[Mark Carver]

Or the domestic use of gas ?!

[Bob Eager]

I needed a number of sockets in the office and wanted multi-way strips. I bought good quality strips and plugs, and what I think was water heater flex!

[Colin Bignell]

When I redesigned my home computer shelving, I also made sure that I only bought good quality strips and plugs. In addition, I used 1.5mm, rather than 1.25mm flex. Strips, plugs and flex were colour coded. Orange for mains power. White with coloured stickers for strips fed from a UPS. The sticker colours being repeated on the UPS and the computer and peripherals fed from it. It all looked very neat when I did it. It is now the usual rat's nest of wires back there.

[Bob Eager]

I haven't colour coded, but the strips are labelled UPS or RAW, as are relevant plugs.

[Colin Bignell]

With four (now three) different computers, each with their own UPS, I needed something to tell me which bit of equipment was on which UPS.

[NY]

I really need to get a UPS and put all the essential kit (router, PVR and weather-station logging computer (Raspberry Pi), satellite phantom PSU etc) onto a single mains block that is fed from it. I'm fed up of getting brief power cuts (often just a second or so) due to overhanging trees shorting out overhead HV wires in the area, causing circuit breakers to back off and retry. The real problem is the mesh networking devices which take ages to re-connect to the primary one which is fed by Ethernet from the router - I think they faff around for ages trying to work out which 2.4 GHz channels to use. And we need 2.4 GHz to communicate with older equipment. Shame that with the Linksys Velop system you can't turn on 2.4 at one specific node (avoiding any contention problems), rather than it being enabled at all nodes or no nodes.

I think during the three years we've lived at this house we've had one power cut that lasted longer than 5 minutes (and power was probably restored within 30 mins) but we've had countless 1-second cuts which are just long enough to make every computer-like device reboot, so the duration is immaterial :-(

[PeterC]

For about 40 years I've had a Safebloc (AKA rat-trap) mounted on a board with a crude thumbscrew-type clamp for flex. Makes it easy to move around with no risk of the flex falling out.

[Bob Eager]

That's our problem. This house has been on the mains since almost forever and the infrastructure is a bit wanting.

We have three UPS units; one in my workshop, one for the four desktops in the office, and one for the server rack. We rarely get a cut longer than a couple of seconds.

I'm using a four Draytek mesh devices but they all use Ethernet backhaul as I flood wired the house. The problem is the thick walls and one of the neighbours who had strong WiFi right next to a shared wall.

[Bob Eager]

Ours are in different physical locations, so no need!

[Andrew]

That's what the centre of the front (leather) bench seat on the Vauxhall Victor FB with column gear change was for. Another four in the back

[Dave Plowman (News]

She should have got a Cambridge instead of Oxford. Near identical mechanics - but the column change on the right, rather than left. Child proof.

[Chris J Dixon]

A school contemporary of mine was allowed to sit in the centre of the bench seat, and operate the gear lever when her dad worked the clutch.

Chris

[John Rumm]

Ironically she replaced it with a Cambridge - but it had an auto box rather than manual. The logic being it might be less frightening when my grandmother drove it - she had a fairly loose concept on the whole concept of gears (and driving generally really[1])

As it happened it spent most of its life sat on ramps in the garage not working for one reason or another. Got replaced with a DAF55 in the end!

[1] The only person I know who rolled the first car she ever drove

[Tim+]

Didn’t every child do that at some point? ;-)

As a 6 year old I had to press the starter pedal on our family Chevy that had a defective handbrake and a preselector (or vacuum assisted) gearbox. To start it my dad would have to press the clutch down (as it was usually left in gear because of the duff handbrake and it wouldn’t go into neutral without the engine running), keep a foot on the brake pedal, jiggle the throttle and press the starter pedal, or rather, delegate the last task as he didn’t have enough feet.

Tim

[williamwright]

I did that. Good training.

Bill

[williamwright]

Yes, gas is ludicrous! Completely crazy to pipe it around when you think about it.

If things had happened differently only special people would be allowed to drive on the roads. They'd be rigorously trained, like airline pilots.

Bill

[Chris J Dixon]

We have moved on from the era when you could light a coal fire with a gas poker, connected by simply pushing a rubber tube over an outlet pipe.

IIRC, when North Sea Gas came along, we had to have a bayonet fitting. :-)

Chris

[Mark Carver]

Yes, I often stop on a local footbridge over the M3 and marvel and fear in equal measure at the dynamics going on below, where death and destruction is only a matter of milliseconds away. If you then consider the some of those drivers are reading and sending text messages (as one example) while they drive it's enough to never want to travel on there ever again !

[John Armstrong]

I lived in a house early 60s with a gas pipe feeding the cooker. It had a short branch with a (gas) tap and an open outlet. No safety device. Ideal for connecting my chemistry set Bunsen burner!

In 1965 we moved to a house in a smokeless zone (Edinburgh). The smokeless fuel required a gas poker which had a bayonet fitting and a coiled wire protection for the tube.