On 16 Dec, 23:57, "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
In article ,
* *Mike wrote:

Soldered ends were common on new appliances until they started factory
fitting plugs.

IIRC they were soldered to allow easy connection for testing - I've also
seen brass sleeves fitted. But both should be cut off before fitting the
plug - the wires were usually too long anyway.


Umm - why should brass sleeves be removed? My thought was that they
were crimped on, rather than soldered, so would be ok for fitting into
(brass) screw down terminals. If they are not advised (and if so, I'd
like to _understand_ the reason why) then I have some plugs to rewire.

As for rewiring plugs, I recently had the pleasure of rewiring a CEE
7/7. Ugh. The earth connection is set closer to the cord-grip than the
terminals, and the plug I rewired had terrible terminal screws - it
looked like they were made by taking standard Philips head screws and
(badly) grinding a slot into them so a standard bladed screwdriver
could be used. Whatever they were made of was very soft - not the hard
brass used in BS1363 plugs, and the live and neutral terminals and
screws were made of dissimilar metals to the earth terminal and screw.
I still can't work out how those things are rated to 16A when BS1363
plugs are 13A.

Cheers,

Sid