From Lostazhell, the answer to the question with no answer, the question that has wasted more time and effort than most any other subject around. The useless subject of:

Up, or Down??

Funny....got an urgent call from the Const. Office...."call xxxxxx @ Lexus".

Made the call; question was "ready to start trim out; which way do you (me) want the receptacles, up or down??"

I almost said "alternate", but not being that smart, I explained that the Code is mute on this, it's a design thing, and the reason for "U" up. He said 'damm, I'm using SS plates, I'll put them 'up'.

John

Those were clearly designed before right angle plugs or wall transformers were common.
Joe

Ground DOWN, that way if the plug falls out and down, away from the receptacle, chances are the ground pin is still in contact with the inside connections of the receptacle, keeping the ground path intact while the other prongs may be free and clear of the receptacle completely.

The only time I place them ground UP is if its a switched outlet for a table lamp where being "flipped" would kind of indicate that the receptacle serves a different purpose.

Off track, if the receptacle is mounted Horizontal, I always install the receptacle with the ground facing to the left that way the neutral is "UP". Should the plug start falling out the neutral is exposed, and wont pose a great hazard. Yes I know that the same can be said for a vertical receptacle mounted with the ground down,
but the way I see it, with a vertical receptacle mounted ground down, if either one or both halves of the receptacle are used, there is still only the potential of only one "hot" terminal being exposed should the plug(s) start to fall away, and your ground will remain in the receptacle and be "last out". With a horizontal receptacle mounted with the grounds to the right ( hot prongs UP) there is the chance that one or TWO hot prongs could be exposed, depending on the number of plugs in use in the receptacle. Flip it around you have NO hot prongs exposed when and if the plugs start to fall away.

Sorry for rambling on, just thought I'd spit my 2 cents in..


A.D

The ground pin on the plug is longer than the other pins so that no matter how the plug is inserted or removed that the grounding pin is the first to make and the last to break.
Don

Someone photoshopped that, right?

I've seen those sockets...but never with the round earth hole flipped around like that....

Would like to see the insides of that thing.

With the 2 receptacles reversed like that, it makes the internal construction much more complex, in that hot and neutral need to cross over internally to land on the correct side of each receptacle.

I'd say it's been photoshopped. Notice on the partly visible plug on the bottom, you can see a faint line on both receptacles, oriented in the same direction. Those lines are opposite in the pic above.

Yeah. We should have Lostazhell give us some INSIDE SHOTS.

INSIDE SHOTS! INSIDE SHOTS!

Hey....that reminds me, has anyone heard any more news on that 360 degrees rotating wall socket?
http://www.360electrical.com/

They are real, I have some about, although likely not available to take inside photos.

I chopped this outlet out of the original pic to give it a little more room on the page. There are 2 others which are not the same.

The original, as Randy sent it:




I think it does a pretty good job of showing that it's not a Photoshop job.

Now this one, from Sparky66WV on the other hand, just might be It's been around the site here for years




[This message has been edited by electure (edited 12-05-2006).]

I got the pic from an ebay search.. If I win the bid, I'll snap some inside pics upon arrival No photoshopping on my end!

submitted by classicsat:

I found one loose, so disassembled it and took snaps.

The top photo shows the insides assembled, the lower picture blown apart, assembled bottom to top on the post in the middle with that extra terminal and its insulator (on the left of the blow-apart) installed first