Further to the thread where Kiwi asks if BS sockets were ever used in Australia, I think I spoke a bit too soon...
This last weekend I've been digging a trench in my backyard for a stormwater drain. Most rural houses in Australia had their own rubbish tip in the bottom of the backyard where non burnable things like broken crockery etc were disposed of, and my digging was around this area. So yesterday morning appeared a white porcelain object out of the earth. I thought it was a switch mechanism at first. But then a closer look and I thought it was a ceiling rose, with the two 'holes' being where the flex emerged. But once I'd washed it, I found it to be a remarkably well preserved 2 pin BS socket! Unfortunately the cover was missing.

So, it would appear that my own house was fitted with such socket(s).

There's no identification, though Paul suggests it's a Crabtree, but what looked odd was the pin spacing...only 17mm between centres. I'm sure that's narrower than anything UK I've seen.
My guess is that this socket was used in the original laundry/kitchen as this was rebuilt about 25 years ago and the rest of the house still has its one and only original Australian 3 pin power point. What appliance it powered I don't know. The stove and fridge were kerosene well into the 1970's, so perhaps an iron.

I have a plug that is supposedly a 5A ungrounded BS plug. It is round, has 16 mm pin spacing and 16 mm long pins.

It's not BS546, it's some older BS. I don't remember the number.

Maybe your socket outlet matches this?

Hi, firstly I have to say this is my first post here - been reading for ages but just discovered how to reply!! That socket is a 5Amp BS 546 two pin socket, the two pin spacing is narrower than the 5Amp three pin. I know because I have one of those sockets, but mine is complete with cover. Not sure of the make, but the cover is a kind of fibre/composite material. Hope this is of some interest.

Nice archaeology Aussie, you cleaned that up real nice !

Does the big C in the middle of the socket stand for "Crabtree" ?

I think Crabtree are still manufacturing now, arent they ?

So it would appear that BS sockets were in use in Aust. and NZ many moons ago.

This socket may also have originated in your parlour (lounge/dining) where the "wireless" once held court.

Welcome to ECN, UKSparx!

Welcome aboard uksparx!


The "C" inside a circle was Crabtree's symbol for many years. Here it is on a 1950s BS1363 socket:



You'll find it on the end of the operating toggles of old Crabtree light switches too.

And yes, Crabtree is still in production, now part of the Electrium Group which also bought out Volex and Wylex:
www.electrium.co.uk


That's about right for the old 2-pin 5A BS546 plugs. As uksparx says, the spacing is smaller than for the equivalent 3-pin plugs:


For comparison, here's the 2-pin British plug (left) compared with the European plug (right):




And the European compared with the 3-pin 5A British:




[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 01-31-2006).]

[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 01-31-2006).]

Was that common in Australia? We used to have propane and natural gas fridges, but kerosene was a pretty rare choice, I think.

Very...rural Australia ran on kerosene into the 50's. Not only for lighting and heating but also for tractors, and stationary engines which ran the farm tools and the home lighting plant (usually 32V DC).
Reticulated mains was only available in the cities and towns until the 50's when it started to spread out to smaller villages and isolated homes. Even in the mid 1960's 32V appliances were still being made. Many an isolated holiday shack continues to use kero lighting and refrigeration.
Natural gas reticulation is non existant in most rural areas....in those areas if people want gas appliances they have two large LPG cylinders which get swapped over about once a year. However, gas refrigeration is very popular in boats and caravans.

Ditto here. Fridges for caravans (travel trailers) are often the "3-way" type, running on LPG, 240V AC power, or 12V DC while on the move.

Funny thing to mention, the plug on the right (probably Italian made, fairly common for cheap table and floor lamps) is rated 6A, compared to the much more substantial 5A plug on the left...
That was the flimsiest style of plug I have ever seen used all around Europe. The terminals inside have to be seen to believe it.

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).]