ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Some real old stuff from Austria - still in daily use

It had a lightly scraped surface, so I decided to tape it. Nowhere near the conductors.
It is still being sold, but only for LV use (carries a 42V max. label even though the harmonized name (A03V-F) indicates 300V). That real old stuff with a shiny surface isn't available any more and the colors have changed too. By the way, this is a 4.5m (roughly) extension cord with a triple trailing socket made of bakelite.

We also have T-shaped and straight adapters in the USA. And those round adapters remind me of the 6-socket ones you can either plug straight in, or screw into, a wall socket after removing the face plate.

There is also a danger of inserting only one of the two plug pins and leaving the other one dangling (if you're fumbling with the adapter like in the dark).

Why they don't make them with a wider face around the socket to prevent this is beyond me.

But look at the bright side of those non-grounded sockets you installed, Ragnar. You can stick French plugs into them with no problem. They wouldn't be grounded but...hey.

I'm talking about the round-face replacement types like the ones made by Legrand. This kind of thing:


[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 06-21-2006).]

{ Edited for image }

[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 06-24-2006).]

Schuko fits too... though I try not to do that for the lack of grounding.

Hi Ragnar,
What an interesting collection of stuff you have there, thanks for taking the time to get pics of it.
That lamp in Pic #2 isn't one of them "touch-lamps", is it by any chance?.
Why is there tape on that flex in Pic #5??.
Finally, I must say I like that shade of blue.

You could do that with many of the older 2-pin 5-amp British adapters too. Some of the later types (generally the ones which had a 13A socket on the front and two 5A sockets, one each side) did enlarge the area around the 5A sockets to prevent it.

Paul - Another quirk of the old BS 546 was the fact that the Earth (ground) pin of the 2Amp plug would fit the Live socket of a 5Amp outlet and the Earth pin of the 5Amp plug would fit the Live socket of a 15Amp outlet!! This of course only with the "dodgy" old unshuttered adaptors that were around. I have a load somewhere, I will try and take some pics to show what I mean. That has to be even more dangerous than an exposed live pin as mentioned above.

No, by no means! It's a plain old brass lamp with a glass shade and a inline cord snap switch (the kind with a black and red button). Cost me €30 a few years ago, found it being stored in a closet for decades when an elderly neighbor moved out.

I already explained the tape a few posts above- the cord was barely scratched, so I decided to wrap a little tape around it not to take _any_ chances. I'm sure most people wouldn't even have noticed the damage, so it doesn't seem like a hazard.

Thanks, I like the dark blue too! It's actually retro painting. Scraping old wallpaper we found remnants of the original 1914 paint job and it was dark colors like that in all the big rooms (dark blue, red, green, brown,...) and I kinda liked the intense blue. The ceiling and the upper 75cm of the walls (above the tall double doors) are off-white to keep the room from getting too dark.

That would be an interesting thing to see, if you get the chance.

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 06-22-2006).]

I'll try to dig it out behind the TV and take a picture.

I couldn't find an unshuttered 15A socket or adapter, but here's a shuttered socket that I "fiddled" to illustrate the point. BS546 5-amp plug, earth pin into live hole of 15-amp socket:




And here's a 2-pin 5-amp plug mis-mated to the outlet of a BS546 adapter: