Granada were a bit slow off the mark were they not? A rapid rethink of
the supply source came about with the Phillips G11. Many had no print
left on the reccies and smoothers only a month or so into the
"warranty" period.

With a brief supply interruption seeing off the supply rectifiers
every time, the customer practice of filling the plugs to capacity and
beyond had to stop, we adopted the practice of removing everything but
the TV cable.

I really used to dread Xmas incidentally, when the tree lights woud be
added to the monstrosity coming out of the 5A Clix Patent!


AB





On Sun, 11 Sep 2016 12:41:31 +0100, Graham.
wrote:

On Sun, 11 Sep 2016 10:56:16 +0100 (GMT+01:00), jim k wrote:

friend has rented a place, in a kitchen cupboard, there's a
double socket, washing machine plugged into 1. The other has the
elec oven & the ignitor for the gas hob both wired into the same
plug...

Is that allowed?

I presume the double socket is spurred off the ring.

TIA

I was thinking back about this recently.

I spent the first two decades of my working life as a TV repair tech
for Granada TV Rentals. Throughout the 70s and 80s
Often a room would have a single outlet.
It was very common for the TV to share a plug with a table lamp etc,
and the VHF distribution systems in Salford's high rise council
estates required a mains powered converter box. We weren't provided
with 2 or 3 way block adapters and 4 way trailing sockets were not
widely available and were probably expensive.
Later of course VHS machines arrived needing power.

So doubling up on a plug, whilst not seen as ideal, was accepted
practice.

Then, at some point probably in the early 80's we were provided with
a stock of what we called the "Granada Safety Connector"
I think I may have an example in the garage, I'll post a photo later
if I find it.
It was an enclosed terminal strip with a common neutral and earth, but
two lives each with a BS1362 fuse, 3 or 5 amp as appropriate.
I think they were made by MK. The cord grips were fibre, they were
reasonably good but not immune to being over tightened, The shell was
secured with two nuts & bolts on opposite corners. Neither was
captive, nor shake proof so they could work loose, and get lost.

I always felt this was paying lip service to safety, and the so-called
safety connector was actually less safe than two wires in a plug,
particularly because the plugs we used were those excellent MK ones
with the large knurled terminal nuts.

One issue with either setup was when the TV started to billow smoke as
they often did, how did farther manage to carry it outside without
tripping over the heavy top-loader VHS hard-wired to it? :-)