"Harry Bloomfield" wrote in message
...
john was thinking very hard :
Rummaging through my electrical stuff and realised I could throw away the
many 13 amp plugs I had removed from defunct appliances over the years. I
recalled the excitement of years ago of getting home with a new appliance
and a brand new MK Plug and taking care and pride in fitting the plug
really carefully. Now of course everything comes with a fitted plug.



I have somewhere in my 'museum' a weird and wonderful adaptor plug which
required no tools to fit to the cable, other than a means to strip the
cable. The wires connected by a spring clip arrangement and once fitted
(the really clever part) it could be plugged into a 5amp, 15amp or 13amp
socket with or without earth pin. You just selected the particular pin
type you needed and locked them in to place.


Remember wiring those in the late '60s. They rattled. Lots of loose pin
parts held in check by a perforated template, and you tapped on its shell to
loosen the three (or two) pins for the gauge you needed! Then you
"unscrewed" them outward, locked them with a 3-way lever! But had no fuse!!
They was marketed for running portable equipment when you were visiting
various premises but were unsure what wall socket types to find at the
destin. So catered for 3 or 4 common formats.
BS1363 13A oblong pin sockets took off reasonably quickly in industrial and
business premises, but stretched over three decades to become universal
domestically in UK.

Does anyone recall the plugs made by "Nettle" - they used to have a
window in them so that you could see the colour of the fuse. I always
thought it was a good idea.

The one with an opening as you looked at it from the pins side.

--

Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk