Hi guys,
Just thought I would throw these pics up here to show you guys a few things from Down Under.
First off we have a Surface-Mount socket Outlet, these are rarely used here now, but at one time a lot of switch boards had them.



Next up is a rather strange looking thing, it's used for appliances where you need an extra switched phase, for instance Non-maintained Emergency lighting.



Dave and I were talking about this connector the other day in the Chat room, here is the picture Dave.



A lot of kettles here used this sort of connector before the IEC connector was used here on imported appliances, as older kettles burn out, the plug arrangement is becoming more rare.

Here is a local Cord-Line switch:



Rated at 10A so I'm told.

One of our Double Adapters:



Please by all means, put your 2c worth in here!.







[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 02-07-2005).]

Re the double adapter, that reminds me of an item in Electronics Australia some years ago.

Somebody described an old double adapter which was built in such a way that the polarity was reversed on one of the outlets. It seems that in the early days of the Australian plug standard there was no specification as to which side should be line and neutral (or should that be "active" and neutral? ).

The double adaptors that had the polarity problems were manufactured by Clipsal in South Australia (part number 460). The bottom half of the adaptor had the correct polarity LIVE was the left pin) but the other side was incorrect. Another Clipsal oddity from the past was the first of the combination socket-outlets had the earth pin facing up (reminds me of some of the disussion amongst the contributors in the 'general discussion' forums of ECN). I have one at home with '58' stamped on it (assume 1958 manufacture). If I have time, I shall dig it out along with some of the other oddball fittings I have including the Aussie 110V 10A plugs (round pins for Active & Neutral with a flat earth pin). The surface sockets still kick on to this day installed in equipment racks from the 1970s & 1980s.

I've got a couple of those surface-mount Aussie sockets. I guess most people use them to wire up workbenches. That's how I did mine anyway.

As for the "kettle plug" those are also sold here, except most of the times they come pre-assembled to a length of HPN (heater parallel neoprene) cord with a molded two-pin plug for the wall socket.

They call the "iron plugs" here and are usually used for coffee machines.

10 Amps for that tiny switch is a bit much, isn't it? Rocker switches like that are normally rated for 5 amps at 125 volts, I think. The bigger ones are more for 15.

I wanna know what the 32 volt DC plug is used for. It's got two flat pins at a 90 degree angle from each other: (- |)

I heard those are used for things like sheep-fur clippers?

I've seen another version of that Iron / Kettle plug on our old vacuum cleaner!

It looks identical to that but has pins in a / \ configuration.

Sven,
I must get me some of that Sheep-fur.
It's called Wool here.
Don't take it personally mate, just having a bit of fun.

Mike,

Yeah....what can I say, I hadn't started swigging my morning coffee yet.

A few minutes after I posted that, I remembered the word. Oh. FUR.

D'oh!!! [/homer simpson]

Well Mike should know the word if nobody else can remember it. What are the figures for New Zealand -- 5 million people and 15 million sheep?

I have no idea of the details, but isn't a 32V system used on farms in Aus? (Maybe battery/genset installations in outback areas with no grid supply.)

Ha Ha Ha Ha,
Sven, you aren't that far out of character, a Cattle-beast escaped after a truck rolled near one of the trendy parts of Auckland recently, people there had seen these things in books.
An Animal-Control guy shot it, the people went back to eating thier fat-free Rump Steaks and Lattes (without sugar, no less)

It is indeed correct there was no official standard as to the live/neutral connections certainly up to the 1950's. This is why on old bakelite plugs you'll see only the "E" designation and not "L" (or "A") and "N".
However, the standards of the time did specify that the active was switched in the GPO. But, as early GPO's consisted of a separate switch and socket, there was no guarantee of polarity. There are still some reversed active/neutral GPO's in the building I work in (built 1956). I understand it's the reason why double pole switching was required in many portable appliances.
It is also interesting to note that up until the late 50's it wasn't required to earth domestic GPO's if there was no other earthed fittings in the same room. For example, in a bedroom it was not considered necessary to run an earth wire to the GPO, whereas in a kitchen it was required. I was quite suprised the first time I'd seen it for real but I can see that you could have gotten away with it.
The 32V socket is officially designated for what is termed "Extra Low Voltage" which is defined as 32V or under. Ironically, although it was meant for use in rural homes supplied by a 32V DC home lighting plant, most such installations used the normal 240V 3 pin socket...when such appliances find their way into an area supplied with 240V mains, the results are disastrous. Having to replace every valve in a 32V radio because the heaters have been blown open is not a cheap exercise! These days the T socket is popular for 12V applications (solar powered homes, boats etc.)and is considerably better than cigarette lighter plug/socket connectors. It also finds widespread use with 32V lead lights.
The 2 pin US style connector is actually not approved for connection to the 240V mains, though up until the 30's when our modified version of the U.S 3 flat pin plug became standardised, it was used along with the various round pin English connectors, and of course the ubiquitous bayonet light socket plug. However, in some very old and few and far between installations it was still used until much later where no earth connection was needed(or could be bothered with). It's main use is of course for running imported 110V appliances from stepdown transformers. I've seen it used for just about everything from 6V upwards.
Why we have the 2 round pin/flat earth pin socket made by Clipsal for 110V I can't work out. I have never seen one being used...and why would you bother? If an earth is required, the use of the standard US 3 pin socket would be more logical.
Incidentally, it used to be very common to find imported appliances fitted with 2 pin US plugs (particularly HiFi gear)to have the pins twisted to fit the Aussie GPO. And if it was a 3 pin US plug the earth pin would simply get broken off.
Standards are much tighter here now and plugs must now have the insulating sleeves part way over the active and neutral pins. Given the pins are still the same thickness, one wonders how much brass has been removed thus weakening the pins.

aussie240,
Welcome to the group!!.
I'm loosely assuming that you are Darren that Bill posted the pics for?.

Trumpy those cord-line switches in your picture are terrible. They fail the moment you insert a 100w light bulb in the table lamp instead of a 60w. I've never checked but I cant believe they are rated at 10A.

There is a also a picture of a 240V 15A socklet and a 10A.

Perhaps someone can help me out here by telling me why the only difference between our 15A and 10A socket outlets here is a larger earth socket. And ditto for plugs.

I would have thought that the normal current carrying pins & sockets ( p & n ) would have have been larger too.

If the only reason for the larger earths is to prevent plugging a 15A plug into a 10A socket, then why didn't we just up-rate our 10A sockets to 15A ?

After all, the minimum size of cable allowed to feed a 10A outlet is 1.5mm which is rated at 16A. This is still a requirement isn't it ? ?

aussie240,
Welcome to the forum!



Thanks for the notes confirming that there was no specified polarity in the past.


Ah.... So the Aussie plug was indeed based on the U.S. type then. The shape and size of the phase/neutral pins just seemed like too much of a coincidence for there to have been no connection.


Could it be simply a case of circuit arrangements in the past requiring a distinction between 10 and 15A for loading/fusing purposes?

The NEMA standards in America use exactly the same shape and size prongs on 20A plugs as the 15A types, but oriented such that a 15A plug will fit a 20A socket, but not vice versa.,

Actually "isolated location" would still be legal in Germany and Austria, but with central heating it would be close to impossible not to have any grounded metal surfaces in a room.
Austria never really cared about the "no other grounds" requirement much anyway... I've seen loads of ungrounded and Schuko receptacles side by side...

No, just found this forum whilst searching for porcelain light sockets

Re the 10A & 15A sockets, I bet the 10A sockets and plugs really would carry 15A just as safely as their official 15A cousins. Also don't forget the 32V plug is rated at 15A and has the same physical pin dimensions.
The idea of having a 15A vs 10A GPO is as I recall simply to limit the use of one high power appliance per circuit.
To try and explain, imagine if we did have our homes fitted with 15A GPO's in every room. The problem would occur if an appliance drawing 3.6KW was plugged in and there were also other appliances on the same circuit. The power circuit would then be exceeding its 16A rating. It's really just a way of encouraging a dedicated power circuit to a particular high power appliance.
Naughty people still file down the earth pin and plug into a 10A socket,however.


I've got an article from "Amateur Radio Action" some years back where Mr Clipsal himself speaks on this topic (sorry I can't remember the guy's real name). In brief, the story goes that both imported US and UK fittings were used in the beginning (more so UK...certainly as far as the bayonet light socket goes anyway) and when Clipsal were looking at manufacturing locally they found it much easier to make flat pins than round ones. And, as earthing of the domestic supply was standard, it was the 3 pin version of the US plug & socket that we ended up with. The article goes on to mention that the pins of the locally made plug were shortened by about 2mm to improve safety.
I actually picked up an ancient workshop power board a few years ago fitted with brass light sockets, what must have been the first generation of bakelite Australasian 3 pin sockets, and some nice GE made 2 pin US sockets. They were wired to 240V along with the other fittings.
I'd be fascinated to see if the present Australasian 3 pin plug does actually fit the US 240V socket.

{ Edited just to tidy up quotes - Paul }


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 07-13-2005).]

A similar arrangement was used with the old BS546 (round-pin) outlets in the U.K. It was the norm for a 15A socket to be wired on its own dedicated 15A branch circuit (there was typically just a single 15A outlet in each main room, often beside the fireplace, for obvious reasons).

Multiple 5A sockets used for smaller portable appliances were then wired on the same circuit. Although the IEE regs. at one point did specify no more than three per 15A branch, it was very common to have many more than this number, and not likely to be a problem with the typical loads in use. 5A sockets were also common on lighting circuits, protected by a 5A fuse.

It won't, at least not unless you twist the blades out of shape.

The 240V 15A NEMA plugs have the blades horizontal (i.e. both blades are turned at 90 degrees compared to the regular 120V plug so that they are in line rather than parallel to each other).

The 20A versions have one vertical and one horizontal blade and the 20A receptacles have one slot arranged as a "T" so that it will accept the appropriate 15A plug as well.

Have a look here for the different configurations:

http://www.leviton.com/sections/techsupp/nema.htm


(It's not clear from the diagrams, but the 15 and 20A types are the same size physically. 30A and above are much larger, both on pin size and spacing.)

There is an an obsolete, ungrounded 120/240V 20A (NEMA 10-20) that has the same pattern and looks close to the Australian plugs but the pin spacing is a little different.

[This message has been edited by IanR (edited 07-13-2005).]

Thanks for the link Paul...I was actually thinking more along the lines of NEMA 10-50.
We had 6-30 type plugs on our DEC PDP-11 mainframes here which I saved when it was all scrapped. This one also looks like it'd take an Aussie plug https://www.electrical-contractor.net/Nostalgia/Odd-Recept.JPG

Thanks for the replies Aussie and PaulUK. So the larger earth pin is to encourage dedicated circuits for higher power appliances. That makes sense.

I suppose in an "ideal world" all sockets in a house would be 15A with a dedicated 20A supply cable to each one and 15A RCCBO protection.

This is economically unfeasible and means the DB would occupy half the garage !

BTW. PaulUK, your Lions Should be arriving home any minute with their tails between their legs. And Aussie 240, the All Blacks will be arriving on your door-step soon. Good Luck !

"I was actually thinking more along the lines of NEMA 10-50"
Actually the 10-50 is comparativly huge. However the 10-20 is quite close. The one that you post in the link I think was later reclassified as the 10-20

{Just to throw a little thread-jack in here}
Aussie,
Is that your own website?.
I'm sure that Paul would get a kick out of that car and a few other of the things on your site!.
Good one!.
kiwi,
Now let's not get too silly here, mate.
Don't you go jinxin' the AB's!.

Trumpy, Yes that's my website I'd hate to think how many hours I've put into it...and it's never finished.

BTW, what's the go with posting pics here from a local file? Is that only a moderator/administrator privilege? I'm dying to put up some pics of the polarity reversing double adaptors (along with 101 other things!), but can only see how to do that from another URL.

As Ian said, the 10-50 is a huge connector. Its typical use in residential work is to connect an electric range, with the 10-30 being used for a clothes dryer. (The 14-xx equivalents are required on new installs now, and can also be found on older circuits which run from a sub-panel -- American grounding arrangements differ somewhat from Brit/Aussie/Kiwi/European practice).


You have some good old stuff on there!

If you look back through the archives you'll find one or two threads here relating to old radios and similar gear.


Yep, only mods. can upload to the ECN server I'm afraid. If you e-mail any images to one of us, we can upload them and provide you with the URLs so that you can link them into your post.


Oh.... The team was over there then? You can tell I'm not the slightest bit interested in sport, can't you?

Aussie,
No I think it might have been 32VAC I got confused with.
The 3rd pic of the post by Bill, was in fact used by light Industrial Spot Welders here.
The pin configuration was meant to ensure that no other equipment could be plugged into that socket.
At that stage, the only people allowed to install this sort of gear would have been Registered Electricians and thier Apprentices, under instruction, mind you, any worker like this would have been able to work that out for themselves, with a simple Bell test.
I'm not actually aware of a rule like that over here, from the Regs that I have, you were required to Earth everything.
Kiwi, no they aren't as far as I'm aware.
I heard figures of 100 or 300W but there is no way that they would carry 2300W.
Proof of the pudding is when you try and switch an inductive load with them, say a twin lamp with Compact Fluorescent lamps in it.
I've never liked cord-line switches or dimmers, they are in my opinion just a stop-gap solution.
[quote]After all, the minimum size of cable allowed to feed a 10A outlet is 1.5mm which is rated at 16A. This is still a requirement isn't it ?{/quote]
Just because it's a minimum size, there is no stipulation to use it.
I'd never use 1.5mm to feed Socket-Outlets, no matter how small the house was.
Under my training you always used 2.5mm and protected it accordingly.
1.5mm was for lighting circuits.

I think most NZ sparkies would agree with you Trumpy when you say that 1.5mm multi-strand should be the minimum for lighting. The 1.0mm solid single-strand cable still available here is very unpopular. Australia and the larger pacific nations have dropped it. Why are we still using it?

We're in a similar position here in still using 1 sq. mm for lighting circuits. As far as I'm aware, the wiring rules in most European countries specify 1.5 as the minimum size.

kiwi,
Mainly because 1mm2 is cheap, the number of houses I've seen wired with it would explain it's popularity or the cut-throat nature of the NZ Electrical Contracting market.
I've seen Inspectors here, refuse to connect houses with 1mm2 feeding the lights.
It doesn't go down well.

Thanks to John (aussie240) for the following:

[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 07-16-2005).]

"I'm not actually aware of a rule like that over here, from the Regs that I have, you were required to Earth everything"

While it had been required to earth all GPO's since the late 50's, lighting circuits lagged behind.
The 1968 wiring rules still don't specify earthing lighting circuits unless there's a metal fitting on the circuit. Needless to say, there's a lot of flourescent lights retrofitted in old houses which aren't earthed.
That was changed in the 70's sometime and even if there's only and only ever will be plastic batten holders (ceiling mount bayonet light socket for those unfamiliar with local terminolgy), an earth wire must be provided at every fitting.
And while where on lighting circuits, 1mm seems to be quite freely available here. (I have to admit having to use it when out of 1.5mm, but I'd prefer not to). Still, it's better that home handymen use that if that's all they can find in the hardware store, and not just run figure eight lamp cord for extra light fittings as I'm sure most of us have seen. I won't get started on the 2 wire extension leads and extra GPO's wired with the same stuff just yet...

In the U.K. it was the 1966 IEE Regs. which introduced the requirement:


Prior to 1966, an earth was only required in certain circumstances.

The applicable exemption for lights is:


(Quoted because Mike likes to read old regulations! )

Well, if you put it like that Paul, yes I do!.
I'm currently wading through the 1932 Radio Regulations.
Issued by the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department.
This has to be read to be believed!.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 07-19-2005).]

Pauluk, there were similiar rules here which led to houses being wired with no earths on the lighting circuits.

Later when the Home-owner wants to replace the plastic lights with metal ones, a 10 minute job turns into a 4 hour nightmare running new earths to the lights.

Anyone who has been caught in this trap would agree that earths at lights should have been mandatory all along !

Kiwi,
I hear you so loud and clear there mate!.
Look,
At the end of the day with anyone that owns a house here and wants Electrical work done, they will go for the quickest and cheapest solution.
Try and tell a Homeowner that thier house light fittings need Earthing.
I'm right behind Kiwi in this respect.
Most people here wouldn't have a clue what goes on in their Electrical systems, that is until something goes wrong.
But with the lack of Earthing, you can't blow any sort of protection.
Sorry I may be getting off track here.
I think that it was John (AS 240) said that you are required to have an Earth Conductor at each light fitting.
Now that in it in self, is a violation here, because most Electricians that I've seen, just cut the green wire off because there is no terminal in a Down-light, to fit it to.
It's just P-N.
Whether its laziness or just silliness but at the end of the day, your customers are paying for it.
Just my Opinion.

Here the requirement to ground lighting points came up in the 1980ies it seems... unless NYM cable was used I haven't seen any older earthed ones. Not sure whether it would have to be retrofitted. Most sparkies certainly don't.

The sole reason for their existence is because one is rated for a 15A load and the other is rated for a 10A load.
It has nothing to do with limiting the load on a circuit, that is the job of the protective device.

Actually you can put a 10A outlet on 1mm under the right circumstances.

Why don't they like 1mm² being used? If it complies with the wiring rules how can they refuse to connect it?

The 32 volt plug was used in industry for 32v tools, drills, grinders etc for safety reasons. When i first started my apprenticeship in about 1990 they were all still present but not used at the BHP steelworks in SA. May have had other uses, have never seen them anywhere else!

The earths on lighting circuits here in Ireland wern't manditory until relatively recently, I'm not 100% sure when they came into force. However, this house was originally wired in 1971 and has none! We had a horrible retrofitting job, particuarly down stairs where there was no access from behind the ceilings. Only a couple of old metal fittings upstairs and the bathroom lights were earthed.

I think the logic in the old days was that people would be quite happy with plastic fittings and if you wanted a metal fitting it would be installed by an electrician anyway, thus properly earthed. They didn't seem to count on the DIY jobs done everywhere.

There are certainly plenty of metal light fittings around that arn't earthed.

More worrying is when people install brass / metal switch plates in 1960s/70s wired houses and don't bother hooking up an earth.

I had one some time ago in which the light fitting had been replaced with a combo fan/light, and the switches in the living room had been changed to brass types. The report was of "slight tingles" when touching the plates sometimes.

All the earth terminals on the fan and switches had been carefully interconnected
with new T&E and 3c+E cable, but the feed was then spliced to the original non-earthed lighting circuit, the earth just left disconnected.

Given the circumstances, it would actually have been better to have left all the earth wires diconnected to avoid the combined capacitance and to avoid the possibility of "exporting" an earth fault from one point to another.

I have to admit ungrounded stuff doesn't bother me that much as long as there aren't any Schuko sockets without ground involved. Having grown up with a truckload of old ungrounded wiring and class 0 appliances with old bakelite plugs it just doesn't seem unusual.

To be fair, the old light circuits with no earths were installed before homeowners were allowed to change fittings themselves ( De-regulation ).

Back then it was safe to assume that a metal light would be installed by an electrician and he would install the appropriate earth wire too.

Interesting that here in NZ we "de-regulated" a few years before we made RCDs mandatory.

Hmmm.... Anyone trying to tell somebody that he wasn't allowed to change a light fitting in his own home around here would no doubt have been told exactly where to go in no uncertain terms.

Its those damn aluminium ladders. Before they came along you didn't need to earth metal light fittings because you were insulated from earth by the wooden ladder.

Paul, likewise here, if you told someone that they couldn't fit their own light fittings you'd have uproar!

Briselec, you can put any outlet you like on a 1mm cable. The protection on the circuit is what matters. 1mm cable de-rates heavily as soon as it hits thermal insulation ( batts) etc. A 10A breaker should only be used on short 1mm TPS runs where there is no thermal insulation involved.

True but I tend to ignore that fact and still work to the rules in the previous edition of the wiring rules regarding GPOs.

I've never understood why they have a table of minimum cable size and then say "but you can use smaller sizes". That doesn't make sense to me.



1mm is rated at 10A when partially surrounded in thermal insulation

Who still uses 1mm2?.
I thought that went out in 1990.
I haven't used it in years, apart from control relay panel stuff.
I most certainly wouldn't install it in anyone's house.
Besides it's too hard to keep flat during clipping.
Down here locally 1.5mm2 is the minimum size.
If you buy 1mm2 here you are a cheap-skate.
Each to thier own though I suppose.

{Message edited for grammatical errors}

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 06-01-2006).]