ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion What's wrong with this? (UK)

Thanks to SimonUK for this photo of a British extension power strip.

(West-of-Pond members, don't be afraid to have a go here! )





[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 04-18-2005).]

Looks like a fused neutral to me.

Peter

Hi there Simon,
This picture looks rather strange.
Is that cord the factory original type?.
Reason I ask that is because, how many flexes in the UK have a bare, solid earthing conductor in them?.
I thought that that was only used in fixed wiring cables.
Looks like the person that attached that cord could have some colour-blindness issues.
BTW, that cord clamp doesn't look that robust.

Well spotted. The bare earth should give away the chord type as the photo doesn't.

It's 1.5mm T&E with the Live and Neutral swapped. The plug was actually wired correctly as far as polarity goes.

The T&E was removed there and then and the extension was wired correctly.

the person who made up the extension removed the original chord because it was too short at 3 feet.

I'm now working as a mechanic for a plant hire firm and have come across dozens of photo opportunities in our workshop alone.

Simon.

Ahaa!.
I thought that cord looked rather strange.
Bring it on, mate!.
It's also rather strang that this multibox should have tunnel terminals in it, must of the ones I've seen aren't made for alteration and just have crimped connections inside them.
Either way Simon, that bare Earth should have been sleeved.

At least on that side of the pond they use solid, heavy conductors for the internal bus...I've seen many power strips here with #18 wire and cruddy crimps at each recept. or more commonly a very thin, brass-colored strip for the bus. No wonder they don't last and are prone to heating up with moderate loading.

Is that mains lead aluminum or just tinned copper?

For the benefit of non-Brits:

T&E = Twin-&-Earth, our equivalent of NM/Romex.

All the modern T&E is just plain copper. Tinned conductors were used on pre-metric cables, prior to about 1970.

That doesn't look like bare copper poking through the terminals though. Did somebody run some solder on these first?

There's no particular reason why the reversed polarity should trip a breaker. Or was this cable damaged due to flexing and shorting intermittently?


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 04-20-2005).]

"There's no particular reason why the reversed polarity should trip a breaker."

Doesn't it depend on how the equipment downstream is wired? A large neutral to earth suppression capacitor might trip an RCD if missconnected live to earth. Were there computers on this multi-way?

Paul the cable had been through the wars. Run over by trucks, cherrypickers, tractors etc. I'm surprised it lasted this long.

The soldered conductor is the remnants of the previous cable.

Mike, I'll take a few pics in the next few days. I missed a good opportunity 2 weeks ago when I was on a breakdown at Ailsa shipyard in Troon which is being demolished. The main shed was full of equipment dating from the first half of the 20th century.

A good thing about our plant is its either construction or demolition companies that hire it which gives me plenty of opportunity to photograph old and new.

Simon.

Okay, I promised more pics so I'll pass them on to Paul.

Simon.