Hi,

Just a little rant! Why do all table lamps now seem to come with SES
or ES fittings? Don't the shops realise we use BC fittings here in the
UK?

I'm sure until a few years ago everything was BC and screw types were
exotic and strange things. Now (in my experience at least, YMMV, etc)
it seems impossible to find a bathroom light that does not have an ES
fitting and many of the outdoor lamps seem to be ES too.

Is it a ploy to make us buy three times as many light bulbs? I seem to
need to keep BC bulbs for ceiling lights, SES bulbs for table lamps,
and ES the bathroom and outdoor lights.

TIA

Fred :
Just a little rant! Why do all table lamps now seem to come with SES
or ES fittings? Don't the shops realise we use BC fittings here in the
UK?

I'm sure until a few years ago everything was BC and screw types were
exotic and strange things. Now (in my experience at least, YMMV, etc)
it seems impossible to find a bathroom light that does not have an ES
fitting and many of the outdoor lamps seem to be ES too.

Is it a ploy to make us buy three times as many light bulbs? I seem to
need to keep BC bulbs for ceiling lights, SES bulbs for table lamps,
and ES the bathroom and outdoor lights.

For ES, I fit an adapter. Simple.

The few SES I have are lower power bulbs than the ES/BC ones so there's
no overlap.

--
Mike Barnes

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 08:51:06 -0000, Fred
wrote:

Hi,

Just a little rant! Why do all table lamps now seem to come with SES
or ES fittings? Don't the shops realise we use BC fittings here in the
UK?

I'm sure until a few years ago everything was BC and screw types were
exotic and strange things. Now (in my experience at least, YMMV, etc)
it seems impossible to find a bathroom light that does not have an ES
fitting and many of the outdoor lamps seem to be ES too.

Is it a ploy to make us buy three times as many light bulbs? I seem to
need to keep BC bulbs for ceiling lights, SES bulbs for table lamps,
and ES the bathroom and outdoor lights.

TIA

Probably economics of scale so they can sell them across more countries
with one fitting. I remember cheap bulkhead lights being sold with screw
fittings a very long time ago.

Not sure of safety of changing bulbs in permanently wired screw lights
because of the possible risk of the outer being live because the neutral
is switched. I see that convertors are available both ways between BC and
ES. If you convert a BC socket to take an ES bulb there is a 50% chance of
the outer being live when turned on. Seems slightly risky to me.

In article ,
Fred writes:
Hi,

Just a little rant! Why do all table lamps now seem to come with SES
or ES fittings? Don't the shops realise we use BC fittings here in the
UK?

Shops realised that most people won't pay for things made in the
UK, so you are stuck with what's made elsewhere in the world.

I'm sure until a few years ago everything was BC and screw types were
exotic and strange things. Now (in my experience at least, YMMV, etc)
it seems impossible to find a bathroom light that does not have an ES
fitting and many of the outdoor lamps seem to be ES too.

My parent's house is pretty much all BC, because their lights are
quite old and were good quality british ones in their day (excellent
quality compared with what you can buy today). I bought them an
outside light recently which had an ES holder, which I changed for
a BC so they don't need another set of spares.

OTOH, my brother's house is virtually all IKEA lighting, so he only
uses ES/SES.

I tend to make my own lights, and don't tend to use lamps which go
in BC or ES holders, so I only have a very small number of each type
of these in the house.

Is it a ploy to make us buy three times as many light bulbs? I seem to

No. It's a side effect we get by wanting to buy cheap, and
having lost the industry which manufactured BC lights.

need to keep BC bulbs for ceiling lights, SES bulbs for table lamps,
and ES the bathroom and outdoor lights.

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

What happened to those clever bc lights with three pins slightly offset so
the connections could only go in one way around. Rad bulbs for fire effects
tended to use them.
Brian

--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________


"Hugh - Was Invisible" wrote in message
newsp.wayabpd9gtk8fg@admin-pc...
On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 08:51:06 -0000, Fred
wrote:

Hi,

Just a little rant! Why do all table lamps now seem to come with SES
or ES fittings? Don't the shops realise we use BC fittings here in the
UK?

I'm sure until a few years ago everything was BC and screw types were
exotic and strange things. Now (in my experience at least, YMMV, etc)
it seems impossible to find a bathroom light that does not have an ES
fitting and many of the outdoor lamps seem to be ES too.

Is it a ploy to make us buy three times as many light bulbs? I seem to
need to keep BC bulbs for ceiling lights, SES bulbs for table lamps,
and ES the bathroom and outdoor lights.

TIA

Probably economics of scale so they can sell them across more countries
with one fitting. I remember cheap bulkhead lights being sold with screw
fittings a very long time ago.

Not sure of safety of changing bulbs in permanently wired screw lights
because of the possible risk of the outer being live because the neutral
is switched. I see that convertors are available both ways between BC and
ES. If you convert a BC socket to take an ES bulb there is a 50% chance of
the outer being live when turned on. Seems slightly risky to me.

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Fred writes:
Hi,

Just a little rant! Why do all table lamps now seem to come with SES
or ES fittings? Don't the shops realise we use BC fittings here in
the UK?

Shops realised that most people won't pay for things made in the
UK, so you are stuck with what's made elsewhere in the world.

I'm sure until a few years ago everything was BC and screw types were
exotic and strange things. Now (in my experience at least, YMMV, etc)
it seems impossible to find a bathroom light that does not have an ES
fitting and many of the outdoor lamps seem to be ES too.

My parent's house is pretty much all BC, because their lights are
quite old and were good quality british ones in their day (excellent
quality compared with what you can buy today). I bought them an
outside light recently which had an ES holder, which I changed for
a BC so they don't need another set of spares.

OTOH, my brother's house is virtually all IKEA lighting, so he only
uses ES/SES.

I tend to make my own lights, and don't tend to use lamps which go
in BC or ES holders, so I only have a very small number of each type
of these in the house.

Is it a ploy to make us buy three times as many light bulbs? I seem
to

No. It's a side effect we get by wanting to buy cheap, and
having lost the industry which manufactured BC lights.

need to keep BC bulbs for ceiling lights, SES bulbs for table lamps,
and ES the bathroom and outdoor lights.


My 30' long kitchen+office was fitted with recessed ES ceiling light
fittings.
It was only 18 months ago I discovered some decent lamps -I Philips Master
33W E27 WW 827. 'm hoping their life will prove as good as the illumination
they provide - which is excellent.

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 10:34:27 -0000
"Hugh - Was Invisible" wrote:

Not sure of safety of changing bulbs in permanently wired screw
lights because of the possible risk of the outer being live because
the neutral is switched.

All the recent ES lampholders I've seen have a non conducting thread
with a small brass side contact near the bottom of the thread . By the
time the cap becomes live it should be screwed in too far for your
fingers to reach it.

--
Mike Clarke

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 12:00:33 -0000, Mike Clarke
wrote:

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 10:34:27 -0000
"Hugh - Was Invisible" wrote:

Not sure of safety of changing bulbs in permanently wired screw
lights because of the possible risk of the outer being live because
the neutral is switched.

All the recent ES lampholders I've seen have a non conducting thread
with a small brass side contact near the bottom of the thread . By the
time the cap becomes live it should be screwed in too far for your
fingers to reach it.

Thanks. Sounds a lot safer than the old ones I've met

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 10:28:09 +0000, Mike Barnes
wrote:

For ES, I fit an adapter. Simple.

Thanks. The last time I saw these adaptors, you could only get BC to
ES; the ES to BC had been discontinued. At that time I was looking at
TLC and CPC. However, I have just looked and TLC lists both again:
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...ors/index.html

Curiously the ES to BC, which is probably the more useful, costs twice
the BC to ES one!

That doesn't help with SES ones. However on another reply, it was
mentioned touching the side of the screw and getting a shock, so I
suppose the SES make that more difficult.

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 10:34:27 -0000, "Hugh - Was Invisible"
wrote:

I see that convertors are available both ways between BC and
ES.

I forgot to say, one possible disadvantage of an adaptor is that it
will "lift" the bulb, so may not be suitable where space is limited or
if it would make the bulb stick out of the lamp shade.

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 11:38:01 -0000, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

What happened to those clever bc lights with three pins slightly offset so
the connections could only go in one way around. Rad bulbs for fire effects
tended to use them.

Hi. I have seen those on car bulbs but never domestic ones. What was
the advantage of that?

Thanks.

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 12:00:33 +0000, Mike Clarke
wrote:

All the recent ES lampholders I've seen have a non conducting thread
with a small brass side contact near the bottom of the thread . By the
time the cap becomes live it should be screwed in too far for your
fingers to reach it.

Is that done for safety or is it to save brass and make them cheaper
to produce I wonder?

I went into B&Q a while back looking for bulbs to go into a batten
holder I was about to fit and the only ones they had were ES. Fair
enough, I thought, I'll get an ES batten holder. 'Oh no - we don't do
them' was the response. Hmm....so you can get one kind of bulb and
another kind of fitting. Being paranoid, of course, I'll put it down
to a master plan to make everyone buy fittings they don't need to
match the the bulbs available.

Of course, the real answer is probably not to go to B&Q.....for
anything (!)

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 10:35:26 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

Shops realised that most people won't pay for things made in the
UK, so you are stuck with what's made elsewhere in the world.

I appreciate that it is better for the manufacturers to have one
fitting to sell to all of the world, rather than different fittings
for different countries, but don't they do that for plugs, so why not
for light fittings?

Next they'll be wanting us to use brown and blue cable to match the
rest of the world

I bought them an outside light recently which had an ES holder, which I changed for
a BC so they don't need another set of spares.

That's a good idea if you can get to and change the fitting.

OTOH, my brother's house is virtually all IKEA lighting, so he only
uses ES/SES.

Ikea is a good hour or so from here, so I don't go too often. I was
thinking that there was more variety in BC light bulbs: different
brightness, etc. Not wanting to start another war about cfls, but I
suppose Ikea might be a good place to look for low energy SES bulbs, I
seem to remember Ikea championing CFLs. Arguments about saving the
planet aside, low wattage bulbs can be good if you want low lighting
levels (night lights, etc)

I tend to make my own lights, and don't tend to use lamps which go
in BC or ES holders, so I only have a very small number of each type
of these in the house.

I was going to ask if you had a lathe and turned your own lamp sticks
(is that what they are called?) and ask where you might be ES fittings
but then I remembered that some time ago you posted some links to
halogen lights you had made.

On 10/03/2012 11:38, Brian Gaff wrote:
What happened to those clever bc lights with three pins slightly offset so
the connections could only go in one way around. Rad bulbs for fire effects
tended to use them.
Brian


MEM Eaton BC3? There were lots of unhappy people especially those in
social housing who didn't take kindly to the cost of the replacement
CFLs they were 'forced' to use.
Anyone else would have just swapped the pendant holder for a normal one
and used whatever lamp they liked.

On Mar 10, 10:35*am, (Andrew Gabriel)
wrote:

I tend to make my own lights, and don't tend to use lamps which go

care to tell us more? piccies?

NT

GMM wrote

I went into B&Q a while back looking for bulbs to go into a batten
holder I was about to fit and the only ones they had were ES. Fair
enough, I thought, I'll get an ES batten holder. 'Oh no - we don't do
them' was the response. Hmm....so you can get one kind of bulb and
another kind of fitting. Being paranoid, of course, I'll put it down
to a master plan to make everyone buy fittings they don't need to
match the the bulbs available.

Of course, the real answer is probably not to go to B&Q.....for anything (!)

Its not just B&Q, you'll find a lot less choice with ES batten holders on ebay from china too.

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 10:35:26 +0000 (UTC) Andrew Gabriel wrote :
Just a little rant! Why do all table lamps now seem to come with
SES or ES fittings? Don't the shops realise we use BC fittings
here in the UK?

Shops realised that most people won't pay for things made in the
UK, so you are stuck with what's made elsewhere in the world.

Yes, save that they are making UK-specific gear because of the
requirement for a factory-fitted plug. But that's non-optional,
whilst substituting a BC holder would be.

--
Tony Bryer, Greentram: 'Software to build on',
Melbourne, Australia www.greentram.com

In message , Fred
writes
On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 10:35:26 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

Shops realised that most people won't pay for things made in the
UK, so you are stuck with what's made elsewhere in the world.

I appreciate that it is better for the manufacturers to have one
fitting to sell to all of the world, rather than different fittings
for different countries, but don't they do that for plugs, so why not
for light fittings?


Well, they have to sell it with different plug, they don't for the
different light fittings.
--
Chris French

In message
, GMM
writes
I went into B&Q a while back looking for bulbs to go into a batten
holder I was about to fit and the only ones they had were ES. Fair
enough, I thought, I'll get an ES batten holder. 'Oh no - we don't do
them' was the response. Hmm....so you can get one kind of bulb and
another kind of fitting. Being paranoid, of course, I'll put it down
to a master plan to make everyone buy fittings they don't need to
match the the bulbs available.

Of course, the real answer is probably not to go to B&Q.....for
anything (!)

Were they just out of stock? Never had any problem finding BC lamps for
that sort of thing.


--
Chris French

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

OTOH, my brother's house is virtually all IKEA lighting, so he only
uses ES/SES.

Much like that here, and I have to say that I find them a great
improvement on BC. I've never had a holder fail, a bulb stuck,
nor a shade ring cross-threaded.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK


Have dancing shoes, will ceilidh.

Chris J Dixon wrote
Andrew Gabriel wrote

OTOH, my brother's house is virtually all IKEA lighting, so he only uses ES/SES.

Much like that here,

Me too.

and I have to say that I find them a great improvement on BC.

Me too.

I've never had a holder fail, a bulb stuck,

Me too.

nor a shade ring cross-threaded.

Dont use those, I mostly have PAR38s in them.