Y adaptor for 2 bulbs in celing pendant lampholder?

About that age for me as well and a bayonet lamp holder. I knew that getting a blet from the mains wasn't a good idea but that didn't stop me accidentally sticking a finger up the holder. Blooming hurt, I guess bulb holder shocks are less likley to be fatal as the chances are you'll pick up the neutral on the same finger so most of the current travels in the finger rather than through/across your chest.

In message , Andrew Gabriel writes

Lots of burnt fingertips though apparently. :)

There was a triple version too. I think I've got one somewhere.

I've definitely got one (or more) with a switch, one definitely has a pull cord switch for the one in line with the bayonet plug.

I remember an 'off peak' heatbank/storage heater at work about 30 years ago. It comprised a large tank insulated with about 30 cm of asbestos. It was heated by 'electrode' boilers, where the element was the water circulating through the tank (and central heating radiators as well, but they may have been on a secondary circulation). The instructions included adding salt to the water if the 'electrodes' didn't draw enough power (to earth, the boiler casing) with the electrode shields fully retracted. You added salt until the boiler sucked enough power from the mains to give full power with 80% of the electrodes exposed. A servo system (which didn't work, automagically adjusted the electrode shields to achieve this.

The system was installed in the 1930s I wonder what current HSE peeps would think of it.

Such systems are still used for electric water heaters. Look up elecrode boilers on google. They tend to need

A friend came back from holidays ans explained that she had showered on some country where someone had run a nail through the shower head and connected it to the mains to get warm water. Yuk. Even worse than these electrode water heaters.

After I explained what could go wrong she decided that on coming travels she would rather shower cold.

Thomas

There's a set of specific requirements in BS 7671 (the UK wiring regulations) for electrode boilers - see section 554-03-xx. Single phase ones are mentioned, but unless certain conditions are met (including the thing not being piped to a water supply) some unusual provisions would apply - i.e. a linked cct. breaker to interrupt both live and neutral feed conductors and bonding of the case to both neutral and protective earth. Since the latter of these would violate other requirements it's not clear how you would comply, other than by using a dedicated isolating transformer.

I've used bare element ceramic jug kettles in Australian motels.

A colleague used to have one at work.

I always wondered how much of the water heating is due to AC current passing through the water ..... (though of course the element has a much lower resistance than the water ..)

I was fond of my "ACME" ( I kid you not ) manual toaster similar to this one. :-

Though with UK voltage being a few volts higher than when it was made, the element was getting shorter over time ....

right

The non-riveted type I take it.

heh. I gather Russia still uses kettles with 2 metal electrodes, no element.

NT

I remember my first visit to a cinema; the film was Disney's 'The Sword in the Stone', the date was 1963, and I was six. I kept looking up behind me, but could only see the beam coming from the port. After the show I pestered mother to ask if I could go up to the box. After what seemed like ages of speaking to the manager, and him 'phoning up to the projectionist, I was somewhat amased to be led up a very narrow iron staircase, and out onto the roof, to get there. Pre-war projectors, Kalee, I think, carbon arcs on everything, glass bulb mercury arc rectifiers for the projectors, motor-generators for spot and slide lanterns. Houselight dimmers were a tank of brine, with a solid iron cone in the bottom, and a hollow one which you winched up and down with a big wheel. There was even a vault on the roof with a few reels of nitrate film still in it, old newsreels and such like. I got to strike one of the arcs, and do a changeover.

I still do the odd projection shift, I'm doing a few hours on Thursday and a full day on Saturday this week, but sadly it's all xenon lamps and solid state rectifiers these days.

Yep, my grandparents had one of those, although I thought it was a Morphy Richards in their case. You had to turn the bread over half way through to toast the other side.

In article , Alex writes

It doesn't.

It does.

Reminds me of the sausage/hot dog cooker one of the guys made in shop class in school. Hooked one side of the mains to nails set into a circular piece of wood. Hooked the other side of the mains to several separately-wired loose nails. Stuck the sausage into a fixed nail and pluged the loose-wired nail into the other end (had to be sure the sausage was of a certain length so the nails didn't touch inside the sausage). Plugged the device in and waited for steam, sound of cooking or an exploding sausage and then they were done.

Terry McGowan

On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 14:29:30 GMT someone who may be Tony Bryer wrote this:-

Electric showers with bare elements are used every day in the UK. Most people would probably be horrified if they knew that the water makes contact with the bare element before it goes over their body.

In message , snipped-for-privacy@care2.com writes

It used to be an old plasterers trick to heat water by banging a nail in either side of a bit of wood, wrapping live round one and neutral round the other, then submersing in a bucket of water. I guess with the presence of plaster the water would be rather conductive.

It's supposed to work that way with polarized plugs and lamp cord that's color coded now. But I don't trust it. Someone wiring the plug or lampholder can easily reverse the leads. Biggest risk is reaching up underneath the shade to unscrew the bulb without looking and then touching the screw part of the bulb as it comes out of the socket.

The new GU-24 socket/plug system now being introduced for CFLs might help though. Is that showing up in the U.K.? Time to get rid of the screw base anyway.

Terry McGowan

remove without destroying it so that shortening or lengthening the wire is impossible. My first wiring book years ago showed something called an "underwriters knott" that added bulk to the wire above the canopy so the knott took the strain. The knott was easy to tie and could be put anywhere in the wire though. I still use it for portable lamp sockets.

Terry McGowan