It has a disconcerting mains buzz to it, which is quite noticeable when you allow the back of your hand to drift along it.
Of course, when the light is switched off, you only feel the buzzing when the plug is inserted in one orientation, because as well as being unearthed, the sockets (here in the Netherlands) are unkeyed for live/neutral...
I guess this is just something I will need to get used to, but I can't say I like it very much.
The lamp body is vibrant enough with ungrounded electricity to light up an electrical screwdriver, by the way.
D.M. Procida presented the following explanation :
Any unearthed metal in proximity to a live mains wire will pick up. That is not usually a problem, unless a wire or similar is damaged and makes actual contact with the metal - Which is why most metalwork needs in similar circumstances to be earthed in the UK.
Yes it will, it doesn't mean it is actually live, just that their is a potential difference between the metal and you, which will have some sort of contact with earth.
To be safe, you should re-rewire it with three core cable and a three-pole plug, and only use it in sockets which provide the earth connection. You will have to find a way of connecting the earth wire to the metal of the lamp.
When I worked in Amsterdam in 1979 I had reason to check mains wiring and I found there was no 'live' and 'neutral', both wires were at 110 volts with respect to ground and 220 volts to each other, so I'm surprised orientation makes a difference.
Yes it will be. We had five amp 2 pin appliances like this for years in the UK not even any shutters on the sockets either. I am still here.
I guess the thing to be sure off is that never ever can any part of one of the wires inside the lamp chafe enough to short to the metal. This normally means belt and braces sleeving in the main.
I though all their sockets had an earth though, you say unkeyed, but that was not what I recall. Brian
Daniele did say in an earlier thread that many sockets in the Netherlands are not equipped with an earth.
However, when an eath IS provided, the Schuko connectors used in the Netherlands have two side earthing contacts which makes them symetrical so the plug will fit the socket either way round.
Perhaps you are remembering the similat French/Belgian sockets which have a protruding earth pin? The plugs will only mate with these one way round, just like UK connectors.
In that case, it doesn't. My late father was a Dutchman who hailed from Rotterdam and I can remember him telling me about this domestic bi-phase distribution set up with Dutch electricity supplies when I was in my early teens. He was always bragging about how much more advanced Holland was compared to the backward Brits, not only with regard to technical stuff like this but also in the lack of imagination by the upper management types in control of British industry who couldn't see beyond the end of their noses when it came to making much needed and overdue investment decisions to regain a competitive edge in the world market.
He had the situation pretty well sussed in my opinion but over the years, I did start to wonder about the use of bi-phase mains supplies in domestic house wiring. It's interesting to see this system mentioned for the very first time in any usenet news group. Your experience goes back to 1979 but do you know whether this was a national standard or only used in specific regions or in housing schemes like blocks of flats?
The use of bi-phase supplies would certainly explain the absence of polarised plugs and sockets since it wouldn't make any difference which way round an appliance was plugged in. Also, all switches would need to be double pole. A possible exception for double pole switching being the use of two lighting circuits using 110v lamps with L-N supply shared between the two lives. I believe that the filament lamps used in my paternal grandparent's flat in Rotterdam were 110v types.
This would allow the use of higher efficacy 110v tungsten filament lamps (a benefit of the American 117v system where, by sacrificing a little more life to even higher efficacy, they choose a nominal 750 hour lifetime rating over the more common 1000 hour rating of the UK's 240v GLS lamps for domestic use which gave rise to the 60W 806Lm light bulb for which we in the UK can offer thanks whenever we purchase a "60W" 810Lm LED GLS lamp).
In fact I mentioned it sometime ago. I was describing an RF distribution head-end that I built for a news agency in Moscow. All mains switching had to be double pole. The voltage across the two phases was 220V. I don't recall any problems such as hum bars.
Interesting! Thanks for that feedback. I guess I could always try googling for more info. It's been one of those little 'factoids' that I've had in the back of my mind for nigh on half a century that it's just never occurred to me to check it out via a google search until now. :-)
Rather annoyingly, no matter how hard I searched, all I could confirm was the fact that the Dutch electrical standard was 220v 50Hz (both true regardless of whether it is single or bi-phase). I wasn't able to get any more detail than that so I guess it's down to relying on anecdotal evidence alone for this level of (well obscured) detail. :-(
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