I came across this animal in none other that Southern California USA, wired into a 30A 240V clothes dryer receptacle with a piece of extension cord... It bears no legible markings & is obviously not domestic from here... Thanks

-Randy

It looks very mutch like a what used to be termed as a D& S socket(sorry, receptacle) must confess though I never saw one in twin configuration. If it is D&S im going back to the late 1960's. Then it was a very early attempt at a fused outlet. One of the pins in the plug top was fused as I remember. Unless anyone knows different that is.

Aland, sorry to correct you, that's a simple surface-mount double Schuko socket like every hardware store in Austria and Germany sells. Rating 250V 10A DC/16A AC (though no one ever used that for DC). I've had one of those in my room for ages until I renovated and put in a flush mount one. 30A and an extension cord is pretty hefty though.

I stand corrected.

I take it that the central hole (black spot) is a fastener. What would be the grey spots, positioned centrally towards the middle, of the adaptor? Are these where French ground/earth pins could emerge?

Looks to me that the gray screws hold the cover on the base, and the black holes between the contacts are where the ground strap is bonded to the cover.

could you make a pic of the opened device, perhaps you can see a manufacter anywhere.

Yes, I've got one here that looks exactly the same. The black things are the rivets that hold the ground scrapers and the grey screws hold the cover.
Hutch: It's not an adaptor, it's a real duplex receptacle!
I'll post pics of mine as soon as I got my imaging software up again.
Mine is mady by Kopp, you can read the brand name on the back side of the bottom part of the receptacle, between the mounting holes. There's also VDE and ÖVE listing and the 10-16/250 rating.

Randy, you find the strangest things!

Here is the matching plug for it:



As you can see, it is a grounded two pin plug

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 05-31-2004).]

Strange that such a device should turn up in California, but then I once bought a big box full of U.S. wiring devices (mostly Hubbell) at a local junk shop. I reckon it may have been surplus from one of the North Sea oil rigs, some of which apparently are wired to American standards.

Got the box real cheap: Nobody else wanted it......

The centre spot fooled me initially it looks like a third pin hence my thoughts about it being a D & S outlet these did have a centre pin.
I am getting to old to see all this fine detail.

Well aland, don't forget I have the original here! Tbat makes it far easier to tell. For some weird reason that style of socket has the ground scrapers attached to the cover instead of the socket itself. When the cover is screwed on the ground scrapers connect to the socket body with a small pin.

Immigrants could bring them over to power some appliances they bring with them. I know a Dutch and a German family that have those around their places in Canada.

Ranger,
where is the GND wire attached to at your twin receptacle? Is there a screw at the Ground bar in the cover, or is the GND screw at the base and a GND connection from base to cover?

The ground screw is at the base and the cover has a rectangular ground pin between the 2 receptacles. Today I'll try to reinstall my JPEG converter then I can post pics.

A selection of short adapter leads with Schuko sockets and NEMA 6-15 plugs would probably be ideal for that purpose. Only problem I see is that there aren't too many places to connect to in the average home.

If you have 6-15 (240V 15A) outlets installed specially in your home, in the long term it would be better to just fit 6-15 plugs to the European appliances.

This is what I do for workshop items except where multiple outlets are required. 6-15/20 power strips are not common so in this case a plug gets fitted to a South African five way strip and BS 546 plugs remain on the equipment.

:andy: wrote:


Here you go!







I did actually figure out one of the markings to be "DVE" in a triangle... (Thanks to finding one on ECN!) & what might be "OVE" in an oval, & the number "K25861" after some paint thinner!

Thanks for all the info guys!

-Randy

PS... This was in a garage I was working on in Cerritos, CA... The homeowner said it was there when he'd bought the house & he did'nt have a clue what it was for... I told him if I could have it, I'd take it out for free..

Yeah, that's exactly the type of receptaclle I've got here. Kopp is a typical Big-box store brand of electrical supplies, yet I mostly like working with their stuff. When we rewired we put in Kopp switches and receptacles everywhere. Those surface-mount receptacles are commonly used for additional sockets where the HO doesn't want to have walls torn up. Staple NM cable to the wall surface to the nearest receptacle or junction box and install such a socket. The easiest and ugliest code-compliant way of wiring.
You might have noticed the fact there are 2 ground terminals. One is there to connect the neutral wire, the second one is for the jumper wire from the ground to the neutral terminal.