ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Fragile sockets.

Point taken about the costs of heavy-duty BS546 connectors these days. As for a broken plug becoming a shock hazard, I really think that's down to due care and maintenance. Any equipment can be a shock hazard if it's allowed to be used in such a condition.

I've seen some CEEform connectors where heavy use and repeated withdrawals has weakened the hold of the fixing screws into the cap, and eventually an attempted withdrawal just results in the cover pulling away leaving exposed terminals (although I have to admit that the latter tend to be shrouded to a greater degree).

Back in the 1980s I was involved with sound and lights for a local amateur dramatics group, and the control booth high at the back of the village hall was full of old equipment, including several very large rheostat dimmers that would probably fail a large number of the safety rules of today.

Last I heard, which was just as I was about to leave, the local sparky was telling the committee that the "solution" would be a row of about a dozen BS1363 outlets over the rigging, each wired individually to its own domestic-style dimmer in the booth. He obviously had absolutely no idea of theatre lighting requirements.

The most serious electic shock that I have suffered has been at the hands of amateur theater lighting with BS546 plugs in a setup very similar to that descibed above by Paul. In this case the plug to the dimmer bank had some how become back fed and an exposed pin which I grabed was live. A shrouded assembly would have helped but mis-wiring somewhere was the main culprit.

I was lucky in this event that the shock threw me against the lighting deck guard rail rather than through the adjacent ladder gap and 10ft down on to the stage!

One common arrangement in the past was to have a bank of sockets inserted in series with the live feeds to the lights, and dimmer connections provided with matching plugs to allow linking of a rheostat into the required circuit. Switches were then fitted to short out sockets which didn't require an individual dimmer, and often changeover switches to provide Direct and Master dimmer feeds.

I think some people got a little confused over this use of connections and could end up wiring something so that a plug was left live.

Not nice to grab hold of, as you say.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-09-2003).]

BS1363's fusing is a bit problematic for high wattage dimmed lamps too. Not to mention the hastle of climbing or lowering rigging to change a plug fuse!

Generally BS546:1950 ( & ammendements) is just considered an opsolete standard here. Strangely enough though, so's CEE 7/4 (Schuko). Stranger still, BS546 was never an offically recognised standard at all in Ireland it just appeared.

It's difficult to get your hands on spares, the plugs available tend to be hard thermoplastics rather than the rubber variety etc.


[This message has been edited by djk (edited 10-09-2003).]