How are your appliances connected #2

[mielabor]

To mrx:

The cord and the plugs have the usual certification markings: Kema-Keur, VDE, ÖVE, etc. The extension cord seems to be from asiatic origin but on the plugs it says "made in Germany".

The plug material seems to be sensitive to light. The exposed parts turn yellow (brown in extreme cases) and then fall apart. I found one in a cupboard that is still in good condition. Never had this problem with the bakelite/melamine plugs and sockets.

For the cord I think that it is the evaporation of plasticiser from the plastic. The cord is not sticky. In the past I have had sticky cords where plasticiser oozed from the ends as a bright green (from the copper I suppose) oily fluid.

At my work we have had a number of Apple computers with clear cords and plugs. In some cases the cord and plugs went sticky. In others not.

My opinion is that the certification procedures need to be adapted for testing on stability of the plastic materials.

 

[MrX]

If it has VDE on it, I suggest you contact them and describe what's happening.

http://www.vde.com/de/Seiten/Homepage.aspx

 

[fa_f3_20]

Interesting threads about wiring practice and historical anomalies in other parts of the world.

FYI, 25 Hz power was readily available in Birmingham, Alabama as recently as 1980. The steel mills there used gobs of it, and it was made available to other commercial installations. I've heard of several people who purchased old downtown commerical buildings to renovate into lofts, who had to have the elevator systems re-wired and the motors replaced because the originals were 25 Hz.

 

[toggleswitch]

I want to say that 25hz power functions in many ways like DC does. Can anyone prove or disprove this?

I'm thinking the steel mills used the power to heat the steel by inducing the current right through it with huge electrodes.

Similarly, elevators used to use DC current, and perhaps still do!

 

[fa_f3_20]

Tried to post this yesterday, and there was some kind of Javascript problem...

25 Hz like DC? Er, sort of, but not that much. I believe the main motivation behind 25 Hz was that, back in the early days, it was hard to build high-RPM motors that wouldn't self-destruct. A four-pole synchronous motor running on 25 Hz would run in the range of 700-750 RPM, which was reasonable for large industrial motors and machinery in the early 20th century. At 60 Hz, it would be around 1700 RPM, which was too fast.

Related to that, I think the Birmingham steel mills wanted 25 Hz mainly for rolling mill machines. The rolling and extruding machines rolled and extruded steel slabs into sheet, bar stock, tubing, etc. I doubt that they wanted it specifically for induction for the simple reason that, up until near the end, the Birmingham mills didn't use any induction furnaces. It was all open hearth, baby! (And seldom was a more effective way of polluting a city's air ever devised...)

There's a museum in Birmingham now called the Sloss Furnaces. Sloss was a pig iron plant, with blast furnaces; all they did was make make pigs which were sold to the steel mills. For most of Sloss's existence, it actually used a decentralized system for electricity. Most of the big machinery, such as the blast furnace's air blowers, were powered by steam. They burned the blast furnace exhaust gas in big boilers to produce the steam. (Most of the exhaust from a blast furnace is carbon monoxide, which actually burns rather well.) The steam was distributed all over the facility. Any place they needed electricity, for lights or small machines or whatever, they tapped into a steam line and hooked up a steam turbine connected to a small dynamo.

 

[sudsmaster]

Trimiele water hookup

Here's the hookup in my workshop for the three Miele washers I've accumulated. There's another more standard hookup for the Neptune set in the main house, but that's relatively boring. The Mieles stay in the workshop because they don't need a water heater.

The red hose is a 50' number snaking in from an outside tap. There's a tap inside the workshop, but not readily accessible (it's low and behind an electric stove now) so it seemed easier to just run the hose. It's meant to be temporary, until I get around to plumbing that wall with water and drain. The electrical (220 and 110) is already there.

The green plastic trash can is for the drain... it has a sump pum which I manually activate after each load is finished. The sump pump is connected to a 75' red garden hose which empties into a commode at the back of the shop (commode currently has no water supply so this works well enough for now). Again, temporary, eventually I'll figure out how to extend a drain from the washer area to the half-bath in back.

 

[sudsmaster]

Closeup of cold water distribution manifold:

 

[sudsmaster]

End of drain hose

Here's the lovely part where the washer drain system terminates...

 

[sudsmaster]

And here is the sump pump setup by the washers:

 

[sudsmaster]

You can see some of the sediment from one of the older Miele washers at the bottom of the sump bucket. It's kind of like limestone dust.