Just been having a read through a hard-cover edition of the Handbook to the 1961 Electrical Wiring Regulations that was given to me by a guy at work.
And I must say there is some rather strange stuff in here.
For a start, everything is in Imperial measurements, there are capacity charts for wooden casing (trunking) for use with VIR insulated conduit wires and there is copious mention of Permits to install Electrical Wiring.
Anyhow, I thought I'd get a few pics of the diagrams used in this text, you guys in the UK may have seen some of this gear before:







Sorry about the quality of the pictures, but I should have used a scanner instead of using my Digital Camera.

Interesting -- So BS546 and BS1363 were once used in New Zealand then?

That middle image showing a ring looked very familiar and sent me running to the book shelves. I have open in front of me the A.S.E.E. (Association of Supervising Electrical Engineers) Guide to the I.E.E. Wiring Regulations 13th Edition, 1955, as amended to December 1963. There is a diagram illustrating the ring circuit which is so similar to yours that they must have a common origin.

The only big difference is that the ASEE version shows the earth running separately at the source instead of being bonded to neutral at the panel, which of course is how the circuit would have been wired here.

The labeling has obviously been re-done, but is otherwise very similar, and specifies 7/.029 cable, which was also standard for rings here.

I don't have a functional scanner here at the moment, or I'd post my version. I'll add the image when I get the chance.

Nothing strange about that. The IEE here was a relatively early adopter of metric, and they didn't switch over until about 1970.

What about the "2-pin T" and "2-pin parallel" outlets? Have you ever come across them? They look suspiciously like NEMA 1-15 and 1-20 receptacle configurations.

Oh, just one last observation..... Your NZSS 1125 outlet is upside down!

Paul,
Yes, they were once used quite prevalently here, mainly for the Secondary sides of Double-wound Isolating Transformers and Step-down transformers, to prevent cross-voltage plugging.
The socket was actually mounted on the transformer body.

Where did the current Australia / New Zealand standard come from? and when was it introduced?

Why was BS 1363 abandoned in NZ in favour of the current system?

Dave,
Sorry it's taken me so long to come back with a decent answer.
As far as records go here, the Standard that gives us our Plug/Socket arrangement, the earliest that I can find is 1935 and it was called NZS 198, the same name it has to this day.
Although, the Australians call it AS 3112.
Dapo may be able to enlighten us as to the origin of this Standard.
To tell you the truth Dave, it never really was abandoned here, but at the same time, it was never really used either.
It was used as an alternative to the current plug-socket system, but it just never caught on here (Thank God!), the Radial circuit being more popular at the time, because of the use of Wood Trunking and (later) Steel Conduit, would have made the Ring Circuit impractical.
I did my time under an Elderly electrician at the PoCo and he told me that in the years after the War (WWII, I assume), new Aluminium Conduit came out and as far as Arthur told me, from then on, everything seemed to be made of Aluminium.
He used some pretty nasty expletives when I asked him about bending it though!.
However, we do still have the ring circuit here though, it's pretty much limited to Caravan Parks and LV/HV Overhead Lines systems.
For those of you that don't already know, like Paul, I hate the idea of a Ring circuit, but lets not go there, eh?.

Seems like BS1363 has the same status in New Zealand as Schuko (CEE 7/7) has in Ireland. i.e. it's not abandoned, just never used.

BS1363 with 32A rings are perfectly legal here in Ireland but, oddly enough it's just appears not to have really caught on as a way of doing things. The vast majority of installations being based around 16Amp fused or 20Amp MCB radials feeding BS1363 socket outlets.

Works quite nicely as a system.

"What about the "2-pin T" and "2-pin parallel" outlets? Have you ever come across them? They look suspiciously like NEMA 1-15 and 1-20 receptacle configurations." In Australia, the 2 pin T has found its way into caravans & motorhomes for 12 volt appliances. The packaging for these plugs is marked as 32VAC 15 Amps. The 2 pin Parallel plugs do fit a NEMA 1-15 or 5-15 socket (tried it & fits perfectly). The only place I have seen the 2 pin parallel used is in Albury, NSW in a couple of 1950s vintage houses. No idea what they were for (power phone or radio?).

Darren (32VAC),
You've jogged my memory.
The 2pin-T here was used as an Aerial and Earth connector, for Valve radio sets in the 1930's and 40's.
I rememeber my Great-Grandfather had a really elderly Valve set at his house way out in the sticks and also a huge Aerial system that went with it.
It also had it's own Earthing system too, that was kept right away from the Mains Earth.
The pin on the radial line (like our current earth pin) was the Earth of the Radio system, the other being the Aerial.
I remember my Great-Grandmother freaking out one day to get the Radio unplugged from the Aerial one day, with the sound of thunder overhead, we missed the end of the Cricket game between us and Aussie.
When the radio was connected back up(some minutes later) and turned on again the Radio New Zealand News was on and told us we had lost.
What a downer!
Having your house wrecked by lightning and satisfying a Cricket fan are two different things, I rate the second one to be more important.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 01-05-2005).]

Here's the British version of that diagram from the old ASEE guide, complete with printing error showing a fused neutral!

Note too that it shows a spur feeding two separate outlets, which is not permissible today.

Paul, I never saw you sneak your Ring circuit picture in there!.
At the bottom of the picture, there is an erratum note, does that refer to the Spur box having two fuses, instead of the usual 1 fuse in the Phase?.
One strange thing about our ring circuits, the spur was never mentioned here, it was just a ring circuit and that was it.
With the UK ring system, is there a limit to how many spurs/fixed appliances that can be run off the one ring?.
As in, you wouldn't be allowed to have a spur coming off every point on the ring would you?.

Yes. By the time this edition of the Regs. was in force it was certainly not considered acceptable to fuse the neutral.

Actually, yes! --- "Not more than half the sockets installed may be served by spurs."

You can see the similar limitation in point #5 of the modern 16th edition here .

What has changed is that the 13th edition allowed a spur to feed two individual socket outlets whereas nowadays a spur may feed only one (although it may be a double socket).


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 02-25-2005).]

Paul,
I'd forgotten about that TLC site.
I must go in there and have a good read of it some time.
It's really well set out.

Hi Mike,

Just checked my old revised edition 1987 of the Handbook to the Electrical Wiring Regulations 1976.

under reg 100. the plug arrangements were shown. ( instead of reg 99 )
under reg 50. the ring mains circuit was explained with the same diagramme.
under reg 163. Test of ring circuit was quoted.

Even then this system was still OK to install although I have never seen it used in NZ.

Of relevance here is just exactly when sockets were first manufactured in NZ. My uneducated guess is mid 1960's. Or was it earlier than that ?

Prior to NZ manufactured sockets we must have imported them right ? So could that be why the BS sockets were used ?

Which leads me to the question:

How old would a sparky be today that would have installed these sockets back in the day ? ?

Trumpy you mentioned that steel conduit makes ring circuits impractical, but aren't steel conduit ring circuits in use in the UK ?

Most certainly.

Well, I've seen Kiwi valve radios from the 50's fitted with a bakelite plug that I have never seen on Aussie stuff. It's a simple design with internal terminals and a screw on cover but nothing in the way of cable strain relief. I think I've got one lying around somewhere. I also had a PDL side entry plug that looked early 60's. One thing we never had here which appears to be common in NZ is a three conductor version of figure eight flex. Wouldn't most plugs and sockets have simply been imported from Australia?

That was used here for a time as well. I have an early-1960s Marconiphone record player fitted with it. The center conductor of the three-in-line flat cord is the earth, and came supplied with a small green sleeve on the end.

Aussie, as far as I know we were manufacturing plugs first and then sockets later. What I would like to know is; were BS type sockets ever used in Australia/NZ ? And where did our 3-flat-radial-pin plugs come from ?

Can any old Antipodeans help here ?

I think the "Figure Eight Flex" you're refering to is our TRU-RIP ( brand name ).

The three-core Tru-rip here is double insulated with coloured core insulation and a white plastic sheath.

Tru-rip has been superceded by flex and is not really used much any more.

Round BS sockets were used in the early days along with US two pin sockets but would have been well and truly gone by the 30's. I do see 2 pin BS porcelain sockets occasionally in 2nd hand building material centres in very old areas. The 2 pin US fittings turn up all the time and as I mentioned elsewhere I had an ancient powerboard fitted with them.
I have never actually seen a US or UK socket in a house as part of fixed wiring.
The 3 pin plug we use now is an old US standard. The whole story is in this thread https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum9/HTML/000835.html
There was mention in "Radio & Hobbies" in the 40's or 50's in their "The serviceman who tells" column about setting up a radio workshop. It said that you need to provide a bayonet socket, a US socket and a round pin UK socket on your workbench because although those fittings were not approved there were still some people using them. So, yes they have been used here. I have seen one or two old radios (Australian made 1930's) fitted with 2 pin US plugs which did have the pins twisted to fit the present socket design.
Unfortunately I doubt you'd ever see a UK/US socket in an old house now. Over the last 20 years with the renovation boom in the inner city areas and demolishing of old houses for ugly new blocks of flats all that stuff has long gone, and rural areas didn't get reticulated power often until the 1950's. But I do remember a lot of original wiring was in use into the early 1980's...we even had incandescent street lamps still going in the older areas then. It used to be always fascinating going into town into the old shops and department stores and seeing all that stuff being used...all TPS, plastic fittings, and halogen downlights now

[This message has been edited by aussie240 (edited 01-28-2006).]

The U.K. version I referred to was also white, but not double-insulated and with no other color coding. (Actually, I can't remember whether perhaps one of the outer conductors had silver strands instead of plain copper to identify the neutral -- I'll have to check.)

Pauluk, I've also seen the white,single insulated stuff here. It was used for hanging pendant lights between the ceiling rose and the pendant.

Don't think its available now though except as speaker cable. Was it ever 415V rated ?

The 3-conductor flat doesn't seem to have been anywhere near as common as the 2-core version of "zip cord." Twisted twin (also single-insulated) was also very common for table lamps and such like, and for pendant fittings.

I don't think any of it was ever rated for more than 250V though. I can't think of any reason why it would need to be.

I have seen flat 3-core cable only once, on one of those weird handheld immersion water heaters.

Here that stuff was/is rated 300V, but there has been serious debate whether it's actually allowed in Austria or not. Basically it's violating the rule of double isolation for everything, but on the other hand some people say there is an exception. At the big box stores that stuff carries a "42V max.!" label anyway, but according to the designation (A05V-F) it should be rated 300/300V.

I think it was somewhere around 1975 that new trading legislation here specified that the cords on all new appliances must be double insulated.

There were exceptions for one or two specific things though: Fairy light strings for sure, and possibly electric shavers?

To be honest, only two sources I know of say such cord has been Legal after about 1970 for low voltage wiring: a German DIY book (not thee best thing anyway, but seems at least halfways solid) and the label on the circa 1995 rolls of cord themselves (Kopp brand). New rolls say 42V max. anyway. Still, the harmonized designation is weird.

There has been double-insulated flat cord here too, but it only looks like it can be ripped apart, actually it's solid, only with a shallow ridge. The core colors on that were yellow and white, don't even ask me where _that_ stuff came from! In some parts of our house it was plastered in to supply some ungrounded receptacles...

Aussie240,
I know the one you're talking about.
The actual "strain relief" was a knot (not unlike a reef knot) in the Phase and Neutral conductors of the cord, the Earth conductor (if present) was un-knotted.
The knot had to be done a certain way or it would damage the wires, I seem to remember an elderly Electrician here telling me about it, about 10 years ago, he's long since passed away.
There was a name for that particular knot, can anyone help?.
The cord was often rubber-sheathed cotton braided, with a jute filler.
Not unlike an iron cord, but more basic, I have seen tinsel/cotton wires on some radios here.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 02-24-2006).]

Possibly what would be called an Underwriter's knot in the U.S.?

Paul,
Yeah, that's the one!.