Hello,

I have bought some round pin plugs to use with table lamps. I bought
the 5A variety as I can't seem to find the 2A ones: have they gone out
of fashion?

I've never used them before. I was expecting them to be identical to
mains three pin plugs but with different shaped pins. However, I see
that there is no fuse inside. Is there a reason for this? You can get
2A and 5A fuses, so why not bring them up to date and fit a fuse on
the live pin, as with 13A plugs?

Thanks.

"Stephen" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I have bought some round pin plugs to use with table lamps. I bought
the 5A variety as I can't seem to find the 2A ones: have they gone out
of fashion?

I've never used them before. I was expecting them to be identical to
mains three pin plugs but with different shaped pins. However, I see
that there is no fuse inside. Is there a reason for this? You can get
2A and 5A fuses, so why not bring them up to date and fit a fuse on
the live pin, as with 13A plugs?

Round pin plugs preceded what you call "mains three pin plugs" and were
never fused, being used on (mostly) radial circuits where the protective
fusing was done in the consumer unit (or fuse box as it was known then). The
increased use of appliances and the development of the ring main to serve
them meant that local plug top fuse was essential for adequate protection as
the consumer unit protection is to protect the ring main, not the individual
appliance connection. Small 5A plugs are still for sale to connect lights
etc to lighting circuits that are protected by a low (usually 5A) fuse
anyway. This prevents normal applicances being plugged in. What you should
*not* do is connect a small round pin socket to a ring main! They should be
connected to the normal lighting circuit or a fused spur off the ring main
with a 5A fuse (or lower). all AFAICR and IMHO


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

"Stephen" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I have bought some round pin plugs to use with table lamps. I bought
the 5A variety as I can't seem to find the 2A ones: have they gone out
of fashion?


TLC still sell the 2 amp ones
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...s_2/index.html
Regards
Bruce

In article ,
"Bob Mannix" writes:
"Stephen" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I have bought some round pin plugs to use with table lamps. I bought
the 5A variety as I can't seem to find the 2A ones: have they gone out
of fashion?

I've never used them before. I was expecting them to be identical to
mains three pin plugs but with different shaped pins. However, I see
that there is no fuse inside. Is there a reason for this? You can get
2A and 5A fuses, so why not bring them up to date and fit a fuse on
the live pin, as with 13A plugs?

Round pin plugs preceded what you call "mains three pin plugs" and were
never fused, being used on (mostly) radial circuits where the protective

There are (were?) fused ones available more recently from MK,
but I don't know if they still do them. They weren't ever fused
back when they were the normal plug type.

fusing was done in the consumer unit (or fuse box as it was known then). The
increased use of appliances and the development of the ring main to serve
them meant that local plug top fuse was essential for adequate protection as
the consumer unit protection is to protect the ring main, not the individual
appliance connection. Small 5A plugs are still for sale to connect lights
etc to lighting circuits that are protected by a low (usually 5A) fuse
anyway. This prevents normal applicances being plugged in. What you should
*not* do is connect a small round pin socket to a ring main! They should be
connected to the normal lighting circuit or a fused spur off the ring main
with a 5A fuse (or lower). all AFAICR and IMHO

2A ones could be used on circuits fused at up to 10A
(this was the common setup for commercial lighting).
I'm not sure, but I suspect the 5A ones (and definitely
the 15A ones) were allowed on circuits fused at up to 15A.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On Mar 12, 2:09*pm, Owain wrote:
Stephen wrote:
I have bought some round pin plugs to use with table lamps. I bought
the 5A variety as I can't seem to find the 2A ones: have they gone out
of fashion?

Yes. I don't think they were ever particularly common. 5A and 15A are /
were used for theatre wiring. 2A isn't a good match for a 5/6A lighting
circuit.


My father said that when he was young tehre were 'heating' sockets and
'lighting' sockets. later these became the 15A and 5A round pin
sockets but in the early days there was more variety.

he said the 'heating' sockets had cheaper electricity than the
lighting ones and you were not allowed to plug a lamp into a heating
socket - not sure when that ended.

Robert

In article ,
Stephen wrote:
I have bought some round pin plugs to use with table lamps. I bought
the 5A variety as I can't seem to find the 2A ones: have they gone out
of fashion?

I've never used them before. I was expecting them to be identical to
mains three pin plugs but with different shaped pins. However, I see
that there is no fuse inside. Is there a reason for this? You can get
2A and 5A fuses, so why not bring them up to date and fit a fuse on
the live pin, as with 13A plugs?

'13 amp' plugs have a fuse in them because the actual circuit is 32 amps.
Round pin plugs are meant to be used on a radial circuit where the
protection at the CU is correct for the outlet - ie if it's a five amp
plug the MCB should be 5 amp too. They're normally used for things like
lighting outlets - and lighting circuits are commonly 6 amp radials. If
you wish to fit one to a final ring circuit it should be protected by an
FCU with suitable fuse.

2 amp three pin are still readily available - TLC have them in most of
their ranges. But since they use the same 1 gang size as 5 amp it doesn't
make much difference.

--
*A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it uses up a thousand times more memory.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:24:47 +0000, Stephen
wrote:

Hello,

I have bought some round pin plugs to use with table lamps. I bought
the 5A variety as I can't seem to find the 2A ones: have they gone out
of fashion?

You can still get them at B&Q - even the smaller branches.

--
Frank Erskine

On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:09:40 +0000, Owain wrote:

Yes. I don't think they were ever particularly common. 5A and 15A are /
were used for theatre wiring. 2A isn't a good match for a 5/6A lighting
circuit.

AIUI they're preferred for theatre lighting /because/ they're unfused. Not
so easy to change a plugtop fuse when the light's on a gantry 20 foot up
above a stage. (Of course circuit protection is - or should be -
arranged elsewhere.)



--
John Stumbles -- http://yaph.co.uk

My other sigs are posh

Stephen wrote:
Hello,

I have bought some round pin plugs to use with table lamps. I bought
the 5A variety as I can't seem to find the 2A ones: have they gone out
of fashion?

I've never used them before. I was expecting them to be identical to
mains three pin plugs but with different shaped pins. However, I see
that there is no fuse inside. Is there a reason for this? You can get
2A and 5A fuses, so why not bring them up to date and fit a fuse on
the live pin, as with 13A plugs?

Thanks.
IIRC the current availability is 5A and 3A, not 2A.

Both are available, but are not fused.

They never were. Their use in lighting circuits coincided with the CU
introduction and properly fused spurs..lighting is not normally wired
ring, so there is no reason to fuse the CU AND the plug, as all the
wires in question can take the full 6A rated current.

i.e. the reason 13A plugs are fused is on account of ring mains: in
theory you can e.g. deliver 32A to a ring main socket, which is in
excess of the cable rating to the device.

I am not sure what the current use of 3A stuff is. But its probably
restricted to switched fused spurs or similar.

On 12 Mar 2009 14:56:17 GMT, YAPH wrote:

On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:09:40 +0000, Owain wrote:

Yes. I don't think they were ever particularly common. 5A and 15A are /
were used for theatre wiring. 2A isn't a good match for a 5/6A lighting
circuit.

AIUI they're preferred for theatre lighting /because/ they're unfused. Not
so easy to change a plugtop fuse when the light's on a gantry 20 foot up
above a stage. (Of course circuit protection is - or should be -
arranged elsewhere.)

Yes - they're all radial circuits from the dimmer pack, each channel
of which is protected.

--
Frank Erskine

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:
IIRC the current availability is 5A and 3A, not 2A.

No, it's 15A, 5A, 2A, as always. (There used to be a 30A too.)

Both are available, but are not fused.

They never were. Their use in lighting circuits coincided with the CU
introduction and properly fused spurs..lighting is not normally wired
ring, so there is no reason to fuse the CU AND the plug, as all the
wires in question can take the full 6A rated current.

Well, the 2A sockets were used on 5A and 10A circuits.

i.e. the reason 13A plugs are fused is on account of ring mains: in
theory you can e.g. deliver 32A to a ring main socket, which is in
excess of the cable rating to the device.

Nothing to do with ring circuit -- it's because the circuit's
fault and/or overload protection is out of scope for the appliance
flex, and applies to ring and branch circuits.

I am not sure what the current use of 3A stuff is. But its probably
restricted to switched fused spurs or similar.

I can't imagine what you're referring to.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:
IIRC the current availability is 5A and 3A, not 2A.

No, it's 15A, 5A, 2A, as always. (There used to be a 30A too.)

Both are available, but are not fused.

They never were. Their use in lighting circuits coincided with the CU
introduction and properly fused spurs..lighting is not normally wired
ring, so there is no reason to fuse the CU AND the plug, as all the
wires in question can take the full 6A rated current.

Well, the 2A sockets were used on 5A and 10A circuits.

i.e. the reason 13A plugs are fused is on account of ring mains: in
theory you can e.g. deliver 32A to a ring main socket, which is in
excess of the cable rating to the device.

Nothing to do with ring circuit -- it's because the circuit's
fault and/or overload protection is out of scope for the appliance
flex, and applies to ring and branch circuits.

I am not sure what the current use of 3A stuff is. But its probably
restricted to switched fused spurs or similar.

I can't imagine what you're referring to.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

I hadn't realised they had got around to sleeving the pins on them until I
saw the TLC illustration.

Can't think why the OP seems to be wanting to go down this route.

In article ,
John wrote:
I hadn't realised they had got around to sleeving the pins on them until
I saw the TLC illustration.

Can't think why the OP seems to be wanting to go down this route.

Useful for things like table lights on dimmer circuits - if you have them
on 13 amp plugs 'someone' may plug in an appliance that overloads the
dimmer.

--
*I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Can't think why the OP seems to be wanting to go down this route.

Useful for things like table lights on dimmer circuits - if you have them
on 13 amp plugs 'someone' may plug in an appliance that overloads the
dimmer.


On a trip to the US, I was staying in a rented condo.
Some electrical appliances semed to only work intermittently.

I traced the fault....

The place was full of dual 110v outlets.
Some of these dual outlets ( not all ) had one output fed from the light
switch on the wall.
The intention was to have lamps around the room come on with the light
switch.

This didn't work, because all the lamps were plugged into regular unswitched
outputs, and required you to go around switching them all on manually at the
lamp ( with the horrible rotaty-rotaty US style lamp switches ). The TV
and other things OTOH switched on and off with the 'non-functional' light
switch!

After a half-hour with a test lamp, I was able to determine which outlets
were switched, and which were not. Re-plugging the appliances to the
appropriate sockets, and suddenly everything works as expected. The light
switch on the wall now actually brought on the lamps in the room.

There was nothing to distinguish the switched from unswitched outlets,
except trial and error.

On subsequent trips, I have come across this often, but now recognise the
problem straight away!

--
Ron

On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:52:14 +0000, Bob Mannix wrote:
What you should
*not* do is connect a small round pin socket to a ring main!

Presumably there's nothing inherently bad about doing so, though -
*provided* that the fuse for the appropriate ring is chosen accordingly?

On 12 Mar, 14:41, RobertL wrote:

he said the 'heating' sockets had cheaper electricity than the
lighting ones and you were not allowed to plug a lamp into a heating
socket - not sure when that ended.

I still have a 1942 letter from the power company on just that topic

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...r_Company).jpg

"Andy Dingley" wrote in message
...
On 12 Mar, 14:41, RobertL wrote:

he said the 'heating' sockets had cheaper electricity than the
lighting ones and you were not allowed to plug a lamp into a
heating
socket - not sure when that ended.

I still have a 1942 letter from the power company on just that topic


http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...r_Company).jpg

You'd think that in 1942 they'd have more pressing matters to attend
to, by heck don't they know there's a war on !

AWEM

On 12 Mar, 18:20, "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
In article ,
* *John wrote:

I hadn't realised they had got around to sleeving the pins on them until
I saw the TLC illustration.
Can't think why the OP seems to be wanting to go down this route.

Useful for things like table lights on dimmer circuits - if you have them
on 13 amp plugs 'someone' may plug in an appliance that overloads the
dimmer.

--
*I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out *

* * Dave Plowman * * * * * * * * London SW
* * * * * * * * * To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Or just switched table/etc lights - to stop people plugging a fan
heater into a lighting circuit.

On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:20:46 -0500, Jules wrote:

Presumably there's nothing inherently bad about doing so, though -
*provided* that the fuse for the appropriate ring is chosen accordingly?

Yes, really: even if you were to protect your ring main at 2A or 5A to suit
the unfused round pin socket, it would violate the Principle of Least
Surprise, and Sod's Law says someone would come along and replace the fuse
or breaker with a 30/32A one "because it's a ring main (innit)".



--
John Stumbles -- http://yaph.co.uk

Thesaurus: extinct reptile noted for its wide vocabulary.

Jules wrote:
On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:12:08 +0000, YAPH wrote:

On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:20:46 -0500, Jules wrote:

Presumably there's nothing inherently bad about doing so, though -
*provided* that the fuse for the appropriate ring is chosen accordingly?
Yes, really: even if you were to protect your ring main at 2A or 5A to suit
the unfused round pin socket, it would violate the Principle of Least
Surprise, and Sod's Law says someone would come along and replace the fuse
or breaker with a 30/32A one "because it's a ring main (innit)".

I suppose I can relax given that I'm in the US and nobody here's ever
heard of a ring main... :-) I *still* haven't worked out what one of the
fuse boxes we have at home is even for - it's got power in and out, but
if it's turned off everything in the house still carries on working...


Careful Jules.

When my RCD blew last month, and I turned off the circuit that was
causing it, I couldn't work out what had stopped working..either..

...Till I walked down the garden and lifted the lid of the septic tank...

;-)

"John Stumbles" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:34:08 -0700, Andy Dingley wrote:

I still have a 1942 letter from the power company on just that topic

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...r_Company).jpg

Fascinating (no, not ironic: sad :-)).

But where does the Wokingham address (just down the road from me!) come
into a correspondence between a consumer in South Wales and their supplier
(based in Gloucestershire)?

A supplier who then became part of the Midlands Electricity Board (MEB)!


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not

The message
from "Ron Lowe" ronATlowe-famlyDOTmeDOTukSPURIOUS contains these words:

Can't think why the OP seems to be wanting to go down this route.

Useful for things like table lights on dimmer circuits - if you have them
on 13 amp plugs 'someone' may plug in an appliance that overloads the
dimmer.


On a trip to the US, I was staying in a rented condo.
Some electrical appliances semed to only work intermittently.

I traced the fault....

The place was full of dual 110v outlets.
Some of these dual outlets ( not all ) had one output fed from the light
switch on the wall.
The intention was to have lamps around the room come on with the light
switch.

This didn't work, because all the lamps were plugged into regular
unswitched
outputs, and required you to go around switching them all on manually
at the
lamp ( with the horrible rotaty-rotaty US style lamp switches ). The TV
and other things OTOH switched on and off with the 'non-functional' light
switch!

After a half-hour with a test lamp, I was able to determine which outlets
were switched, and which were not. Re-plugging the appliances to the
appropriate sockets, and suddenly everything works as expected. The light
switch on the wall now actually brought on the lamps in the room.

There was nothing to distinguish the switched from unswitched outlets,
except trial and error.

On subsequent trips, I have come across this often, but now recognise the
problem straight away!

A cultural thing. In the 60s and 70s you would expect a swag lamp or a
pole lamp to be powered from such a switched receptacle. Quaint, maybe,
but I was quite partial to the things. Indeed I staill have an American
swag lamp in use (in the UK), taken from our lounge when we left North
America and hooked up in our front room here. Not from a socket
switched from the door, however :-(. If it were switched from the
door I might have installed a 2A socket :-).

John Stumbles wrote:
On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:34:08 -0700, Andy Dingley wrote:

I still have a 1942 letter from the power company on just that topic

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...r_Company).jpg

Fascinating (no, not ironic: sad :-)).

But where does the Wokingham address (just down the road from me!) come
into a correspondence between a consumer in South Wales and their supplier
(based in Gloucestershire)?

If you look underneath the typing, you can see:

Registered Office:
14-20 King William St
London EC4

has been changed to:
213 Finchampstead Road
Wokingham
Berks

I can think of three reasons... either their were cutting costs, they were
evacuated, or they were bombed out.

Googles
Aha, it looks like the building in question is off to the right of this
pictu
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9037506...n/photostream/
and behind the photographer:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/90375069@N00/1017605956/

11th September 1940.

Theo

On 15 Mar, 11:58, Theo Markettos
wrote:

Googles
Aha, it looks like the building in question is off to the right of this
pictuhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/9037506...n/photostream/
and behind the photographer:http://www.flickr.com/photos/90375069@N00/1017605956/

11th September 1940.

Wow, thanks for that!

2a & 5a plug tops are traditionally smaller in size to conventional 13a 3pin
plugs

They are still available - try Abacus Electrical Supplies
www.abacuselectricalsupplies.co.uk

url:http://myreader.co.uk/msg/1391142637.aspx

In article ,
Danny wrote:
2a & 5a plug tops are traditionally smaller in size to conventional 13a
3pin plugs

They are but the socket plate size is the same.

They are still available - try Abacus Electrical Supplies
www.abacuselectricalsupplies.co.uk

Every electrical wholesaler I know stocks them. And some even have online
catalogues. ;-)

--
*60-year-old, one owner - needs parts, make offer

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In message , Danny Gladdish
writes
2a & 5a plug tops are traditionally smaller in size to conventional 13a 3pin
plugs

They are still available - try Abacus Electrical Supplies
www.abacuselectricalsupplies.co.uk

url:http://myreader.co.uk/msg/1391142637.aspx

Calling Medway Handyman

Can you fo round and firebomb these spammers please ?


--
geoff