Changing world?

Over my lifetime things have changed, some things we have no option, teletext, telegram for example, others are due to my own choice, like not using a slide rule, giving up packet radio, others it is 50/50 like the loose of RAYNET, some areas it is still active.

The BS 1363 plug and socket, FCU etc, we invented before I was born, been modified with thinner cable, and pins to allow the use of insulation around the pins, and the volt drop permitted has changed so also the length of the ring final, but it has stayed reasonably static.

The banks of relays has given way to the PLC, and the auto-transformer and star/delta starter replaced with drives (inverters) and the use of DC for variable speed has also been replaced with the drives, and also the idea of retaining the wiring diagram in ones head, today no option, you have to read the instructions.

As an apprentice there was a them and us, we looked down on the house basher as being the basic electrician, the central heating was the most complex circuit the domestic electrician had to work with, today domestic is far more complex, but also the industrial scene has moved on, not sure if I returned I could hack it. Before I retired the laptop was the first tool one went to, today my son can keep machines running without even leaving home. With SCADA etc.

We have acronyms like RCD, PLC, IT, which can mean many things like recreational craft directive, programmable logic control, and insulated from earth, and we have to try to guess what it means, not so long ago a thread talked about a new kitchen, and it seems it was only a upgrade and not moving to a new location, and we on the forum have to guess.

The two way switching did have two main options, that’s no longer true, we have wireless switches. And as to power use, I remember the twin tub with mangle, where all cooking had to be curtailed on washing day, so even if the washing machine did draw 3 kW, with nothing else running it hardly mattered. Today the hot fill washing machine seems to have gone, but also the dryer is now only using 650 watts, and uses a heat pump.

But there are still some who hang onto the old methods, and the vented tumble drier can in real terms use the same as the heat pump, the air and water cooled dryers however often have no option to set power being used.

But some things never change, we still have steam trains in my village, and I have returned to using a bike, OK an e-bike but still a bike. So how have the rest of you adjusted to the changing world?

It’s a great time to live , the world has shrunk, changes in tech are as big as the invention of electricity etc.

I use my phone with |Google notes for a shopping list.
No scribbled bits of paper for me.

I have items listed by store, in order of finding them as I walk around, I use a bike phone holder on the trolley handlebar.
Fully Futurized Shopping list.

OK it sometimes goes FooBar but I like it lol.

I have wireless light switches (well, 2 of them).
I have a heat pump drier.

Progress, it happened - we all need to have some.

I still find it amazing that you can be walking down your local High Street talking on a telephone to someone in Australia walking down their local High Street.

ericmark said:

today domestic is far more complex,

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And in the blue corner, plug-in structured cabling systems...

morqthana said:

And in the blue corner, plug-in structured cabling systems...

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Ah those things, I'm skeptical for several reasons.

Firstly, price and availability generally seems poor.

Secondly, a cable with a connector on is much harder to get through the building fabric than a plain cable

Thirdly what impact do all these extra connectors have on long term reliability?

Fourthly many systems still need electrical knowledge to install and modify correctly. For example one system I saw had a 63A three phase "bus cable" with IDC tapoffs. There were options for tapoffs with breakers but also options for tapoffs that just had an unprotected 20A connector. The same manufacturer also sold a splitter for the 20A connectors.

Mottie said:

I still find it amazing that you can be walking down your local High Street talking on a telephone to someone in Australia walking down their local High Street.

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You're lucky... not heard of thieving yobs

My worry is that using modern technology may as I get older, need someone else to fix it.

The central heating here was in a mess, and I had a couple of PLCs which could easily be used to control it. But could a domestic electrician fix it if and when it goes wrong?

As it was, I used Nest Gen 3, OK mistake I know that now, but it seemed to fit the bill, did not have batteries which need replacing, I remember a cold narrow boat trip where heating could not be used, as batteries flat in the thermostat, and I got a plumber to fit two motorised valves, so I could select flat or main house. He subcontracted to a heating engineer, who commented god knows how to wire that lot.

OK, had to use a pair of relays, as the valves only have one set of contacts and needed one for pump and one for boiler as two pumps and one boiler, but it was not rocket science.

But as a boy, we had a telephone, my dad was a manager in a power station, so was on call. It was placed in the hall, so easy to reach from any room, and it did not stop what ever was going on in the rooms, typical party line, so listen first before pressing button, no plugs back then, all owned by the GPO. And there was no power socket in the hall.

As time went on, party line became private, extensions were wired in, dad even made a hatch between two bedrooms so same phone could be answered in either bedroom. There was a limit of 5 REN so we had one phone with no dial or bell, only used to answer the phone.

More time passed, and it became a cordless phone, just one phone not cordless so it would work in a power cut.

Further still, and a call centre unit was fitted, which connected to mothers pendent, and the smoke alarms, mains and battery, so it would alert the call centre with loss of mains, smoke alarms, or pressing pendent button. It even disconnected all other phones when activated so if a phone left off the rest it would not stop it working.

But this is where history kicked in, the unit was fitted in the living room, before the cordless phone, but not before the corded phone, so it did not disconnect it.

And this is the problem as we up-date, there are no wiring diagrams for a house, and often there are historic reasons why we have some odd systems.

In the main anything new, I look for on-line instructions and put them on my lap-top, plus a copy on the back-up hard drive, as likely 5 years on, no one knows where the paper ones are.

There are exceptions, there is a pocket in the boiler to store the instructions, so I can always find them. But items kept in the shed or outside, would need to ask the mouse what they said if stored with them.

We have been trained over the years, if all else fails, read the instructions, I have when bored started to read them, a battery drill, which does not come with the battery or charger, they have to be bought separate, starts with safety instructions on how to fit a 13 amp plug. Clearly nothing to do with the item bought, so we have been programmed by things like this, to ignore instructions as full of waffle.

One buys something with a 13 amp plug, and we simply plug it in, only if it does not work do we read instructions. And even then we have to find the English bit, often in 8 languages, but even when sold in Wales, no instructions in Welsh.

Mottie said:

I still find it amazing that you can be walking down your local High Street talking on a telephone to someone in Australia walking down their local High Street.

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"The man from UNCLE" and those amazing little pens they could use to talk to another agent somewhere else in the world, what next? we thought at the time! We have surpassed it