ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Archeological find- BS sockets used in Australia

That seems to be a constant worldwide.

32VDC was once popular here in the USA for rural power. I've read that this voltage standard was established by GM's DelcoLight, and that other manufacturers followed suit. Was this true in Australia as well?

Check out Wincharger.com for some amazing history on windpowered farm systems. Most of those shown on that site were in the USA and Canada.

Why did compression refrigeration ultimately win out over absorption? It's not that the former technology is superior to the latter. Read How the Refrigerator got its Hum.



[This message has been edited by yaktx (edited 02-01-2006).]

Domestic wind generators have fascinated me for years, so I'm aware of Wincharger in the US. I believe most Winchargers met an unfortunate end as the REA came through and wouldn't connect up the mains power until the owner demonstrated that the Wincharger could never be functional again.
My guess is that our adoption of 32V came from the US; I've never heard of anything 32V from the UK.
We had a South Australian company called Dunlite which made wind generators in 12, 24, 32, 48 & 110V.
Once I get around to installing it I'll post pics of my own wind generator setup.

I've heard stories of coop officials taking aim with firearms at old wind turbines from the side of the road.

I'd love to see pix of your wind turbine. I'd have one if I didn't live in the city.

Yep, it's stamped 6A 250V. The only other markings are what I take to be the manufacturer's symbol (unless it's some old European approval mark?). It looks like an "E" which has a smaller "P" (or possibly "D") next to it so that it's between the top and bottom bar of the "E" and touching the middle bar. (Sorry, it's too small to get a clear enough photo.)


The pins are hollow, and I think this shows the terminal arrangement clearly enough:

Here's the U.K. 5A, the pins of which are solid brass except for the very narrow slot which gives a tiny amount of "springiness" to them:

As a guide for those not familiar with all these old plugs here's a pic to give an overall comparison of physical sizes.

(Sorry, I don't have any Aussie/Kiwi plugs, but there's probably something there you're familiar with for the scale.)


Top center is BS546 15 amp, bottom left is an American NEMA 6-20. Top left is a BS1363 of course, and the others are the same plugs that appear above.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 02-02-2006).]

Those tiny flat plugs are the only old European plugs with hollow pins I've ever seen, all others have solid pins, the old ungrounded ones always brass, Schuko plugs generally had silvery looking pins (some steel alloy?) with very few exceptions. Some very cheap modern plugs have hollow brass pins now.

In an abandoned house in rural Italy I once saw a refrigerator (not even that old) with the original grounding plug cut off and such a tiny plug installed. It must have been a quite recent model, because the flex already had the new colors, not some weird Italian ones, I guess late 70ies or early 80ies.
The sockets in that house were wired with some scary flex anyway, 0.3mm2 I'd guess, 0.5 at best, all ungrounded and everything surface mounted. Flat cables like zip cord, simply nailed to the walls with thin nails driven between the conductors. Never found any kind of fuses in those houses either, only a smashed main switch in one of them. Weird stuff, it's a pity I was too small to take many pictures back then, and the houses were partially too far gone to get into all of the corners.

I believe some may be nickel-plated brass. Take a piece of sandpaper to one and rub the surface of the pin on an old plug that you're going to throw out. Or better yet, see if a magnet sticks to the pin.

If a gold-coloured metal shows underneath then it's most likely brass. Some of our replacement plugs have galvanized (zinc-coated) steel pins.

As far as the terminals on that two-pin Italian plug are concerned, I've seen that on plugs here in the USA. The idea is for the little metal plate to clamp down on the wire instead of having to wrap the conductor around the terminal screw. It helps speed things up a bit.

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 02-02-2006).]