Interesting Regulation of Yesteryear

[ericmark]

As an apprentice, if I went into the office and asked to look at the regulations, I was met with what do you want them for.

I had not realised neutral had been classed as live for so long.

Also, how the bulb had been called a lamp for so long. Which is clearly wrong when everyone else calls the whole thing a lamp, if I asked for a bike lamp, I would get the whole thing, which would fit on the spigot. Same with gas or oil lamp in a house. And we still call it a table lamp. Can't work out why the IEE called the bulb a lamp?

Lamp holder plug - An accessory for insertion into a lamp holder for the purpose of connecting to the supply a current using appliance. Note.- the use of such plugs is deprecated.

Had to look it up:- Deprecated means a feature, code, or practice is outdated, no longer recommended for use, and planned for future removal. While it still works currently to avoid breaking things right away, developers should switch to newer alternatives. In general English, it can also mean to express strong disapproval or to belittle something.

Today I would call this a lamp holder plug. But google still shows they were when I was a lad the preferred method to power a smoothing iron, as it kept the cord out of the way. Not seen them for years either since the cordless iron.

 

[securespark]

Still have one of those somewhere that I used to use to power a drill.

In the days before battery drills were popular (and affordable), I would plug a drill into a ceiling rose when all the sockets were off.

 

[mikehammer69]

Manufacturers be making gadgets

 

[Diver Fred]

Got to also remember thing change for a reason. Many appliances in a kitchen where often 3kw & i personally wouldn't put a 3kw appliance on a plug & would hard wire it in to a flex outlet plate. Plugs & sockets can often get warm & hot at 3kw = 13.4A at 230v. Thankfully many appliances are 2kw these days. Also, most fuse spurs where SP switching back in the 50/60's & most now are DP switching.

A previous employer ('70 thru '01) issued an internal edict that 'sheathed' 13amp plugs (ones with the live and neutral pins partially insulated) should be rated at 10amps maximum.

 

[Diver Fred]

>>Snip<< I know at one time we had sockets which you turned the plug to turn it on, and pressed a button to turn it off, think it was a Reyrolle,

I know them as 'Electrak' plug & sockets. Ex-employer used them in 'Always On' computer areas.

 

[ebee]

"Plugs & sockets can often get warm & hot at 3kw = 13.4A at 230v."

3KW at the "real voltage of 240 v" is 12.5 amps.
Off course when that was quoted our our 240 v was allowed a little tolerance so our 12.5 amps could be plus or minus that.
Most heaters etc were purely resistive therefore that that 12.5 amps still pretty much holds good.
Although our voltage has "nominally changed to 230v to align with Europe etc it has not really changed so 12.5 is the figure we should be looking at.

Ok there are a few items that actually change the current to accomodate the voltage variation to compensate butin the grand scale of things not that many, so in essence we are better to stick to the old figures to get an appreciation of things.

Gone are the days when common fan heaters etc were 3KW anyway and 2KW is the "New normal".

We sensibly tend to stick to 10A max or 2KW max to anything connected to any decent make of plug for any length of time and to bear in mind the safety sleeve on modern plugs must affect heat dissipation compared to the older plugs.

Again sensibly we tend to have any appliance limited to the notational 2KW if its not to be wired to its own circuit rather than a ring or a radial circuit and best limited to one per circuit.

I my youth it was not totally unknown to see 3 or more 3KW heaters on one bog standard plug in circuit - oh dear!

 

[mikehammer69]

The bad old days when electricity was dangerous

My father was an old school electrician we unplugged everything at night