Lostazhell (Randy)


















[This message has been edited by electure (edited 04-09-2004).]

Those porcelain switches remind me of the snap switches I took out of my house when I remodeled...my last electrical project with my Dad.

I was fishing a new line to the lamp over the side door, and was wiggling the wire, and waiting for Dad to tell me if it was moving.

Well, I gues my efforts and 65+ years were too much - the side of the switch fractured, separating a flake of porcelain and the terminal, and my hand slid down and OUCH! Another trip to the ER...

Still have the scar. One of the guys on the department laughed at me, until I reminded him that "primitive" people used to use obsidian for knife blades.

[This message has been edited by DougW (edited 04-27-2004).]

I love surface mount outlets.

I have a couple of the Levitons on the right in brown, a few Eagles (modern-day manufacture) and a Gem brand one also all in brown.

The old Levitons are probably the best when it comes to those surface-mount sockets becasue they have two extra terminals for "feed thru".

I also have a round Eagle-brand porcelain surface outlets -- with contacts for round-pin Europlugs and flat-pin American plugs. Ollldd thing.

What brand is the big one on the left and what happened to the other case-screw?

Wow. I can't believe I'm actually paying Leviton a compliment!

Surface-mount plastic receptacles (Eagle) are also used as power sources on my workbench. WHOO HOO!!!

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 04-29-2004).]

Looks like a Pass&Seymour.

Sven,
Classicsat has it right, P&S "Surfex" The screw you speak of was missing when I found this guy... I used to have some old Leviton surface mount recepts & switched from the same era... I think my garage swallowed them

The pushbutton switches are still in pretty good shape as well, for being over 100 years old! The single 4 slot recepts I think were original from when the house was built, they were by far, the most worn out things in that place.. (cords taped to the wall to keep them in the recepts! ) The duplex 4 slot is one I haven't ever come across before.. Mfg by "Hoosick"?

-Randy

Lostazhell wrote:


Geeez....are people that lazy? I also once read about tricks where they tell you to bend the plug pins a little outward or inward to help make contact and keep the plug in the socket.

I guess in some places it's just not possible to change the wall socket (such as when you're staying in a rented room at a hotel or something).

Hey...let me know if you're ever planning on cleaning out your garage!!


[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 05-03-2004).]

Sven,
I see the laziness thing constantly! (See "Ceiling fan running on Tstat wire" in the photo/discussion forum)
Every outlet in that house seemed to have a power strip stuck in it... The P&S surface mount recept was actually wired with something resembling early romex, running under a window behind some mitered out wood molding.. Full entertainment center running there... The other 2 surface mounts were zip-cord fed off other recepts..
I remember, the power strips plugged into the single recepts with a "cheater" were mostly running small things (thankfully) table lamps, clock, radio, etc... & maybe an occaisional vacuum...
Her bathroom didn't have an outlet... There was a keyless on the ceiling with a built in recept.. She had an extension cord, (looked like it'd been there since the 50's) coming from the ceiling (18 awg) for a hair dryer...

-Randy

Holy kripes! What in the heck ever plugged into these style receptacles????



I can only wonder how old they are....anyone know?

I have only seen one of those 4-pronger receptacles once, but actually it was part of an ANCIENT electric parabolic heater. the cord was standard HPN heater cord with a regular cap on it but the female end was one of those 4-pronger ends, and fit right on the back of this heater using the tandem slots. you could also plug in a standard parralell blade plug into that same cord end.. Bizarre I thought.
A.D

Dawg,
Those are the precursor to the "T-Slots" that you've been inquiring about... If you look at it, realize that only 2 of the 4 slots were utilized at one time. a NEMA 1-15 plug would fit vertically, and a 2-15 horizontally.. If I remember right, their's continuity between the top & right slot, then the bottom and left. It would be trippy if they had designed these to output 2 separate voltages from one outlet point, but these all just had 2 terminal screws. These came from an old house I rewired (circa. 1900) in Compton, CA.

This Fuse Box came from the same house as well

Randy

Thanx Randy.

I once asked a guy in the electrical retail about why the t slot were made....he said it was for 240 volts as that's what the tandem blade plugs were for....but he also said it was very easy to plug in the wrong item unless you were the one that wired it up....

Me I'm still trying to learn about the past.....

It would be worth mentioning that the old fusebox shown in Randy's other thread was designed for 120V two-wire service. Although rated for 250V, I'm sure these devices, in their long life, never saw any higher voltage than 125 (and probably never more than 110 when all the appliances were running at once).

What amazes me, Randy, is that you found so many antiques in one house. How many square feet was it? I remember working on a house about the same age that was about 6000 sf, and most of the devices in it were modern ('50s or later), albeit many of them wrongly applied (e.g. 5-15 with no ground). I do still have a few curiosities from there. Much of the wiring could be called K&T, except with no porcelain anywhere. It was all stapled, and lead-covered conductors. We were there to repair fire damage on the third floor, but the inspector made us meg the K&T circuits. They all failed, of course, so we re-wired everything.

Mike,
If I recall correctly, that old house seemed to have had electricity added into it in pieces at a time. All but 2 switches in the house were the pushbutton ones. The 4 slot outlets were in kinda odd places, except the duplex one was in a bedroom behind a door. (one of em was in the ceiling in the hallway ) The surface mount P&S was in the living room area loaded with a bigscreen and all kinds of other electronics. The Hubbell T-slot/crows foot combo was in the garage (with a lone piece of wire on the "ground" terminal tied to a water pipe @ the hot water heater). The 2 nema 1-15's in the center of the 1st pic were the same manufacturer as the panel (Diamond S).

The house wasn't really that big.. 2 bedroom, one bath, ratty old 1 car garage. It was maybe 1200 sq ft at the most. The lady who called us told me her grandparents bought the house in the 20's, and her grandpa might've added a few things here and there. As far as I could tell, the K&T there appeared all original except were it looked like it was continued on to the rear bedroom for some reason.

Also worth noting, I've found the Perkins pushbutton switches in an old HUGE house in Los Angeles (built 1903), and a house in "old towne" Orange (built 1898) also... Perkins might have been a popular turn of the century brand out here in So Cal

I have one of those 4 prong duplexes in my room. I like it because even though it is mounted sideways in the baseboard, the prongs are vertical (personal preference). It was supplied with K&T, and hardly ever used. I unscrewed it (Yes, it had screws! but no brand name. It's ceramic, though, which leads me to believe it's really old.) and cleaned it up a bit. It holds onto plugs really well, and I use it for a lamp and clock radio. I have lots of antique (or antique looking) fixtures in my bedrooms and my enrty hall.