Remember these early and unsafe power bars?

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turquoisedude

turquoisedude

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After FINALLY getting all the boxes unpacked from our move in 2007, I found and re-assembled my collection of old-fashioned power bars. I remember that my folks used dozens of these things - it was a miracle we never succeeded in burning down the house! Yes, I admit I do still use them (low-wattage appliances like my sound system - turntable,amp,tape deck, CD player - and occaisionally for the holiday lighting displays).
Can you imagine the kind of legal trouble the folks at Tap-A-Line and Fedtro would be in today? ("Well it didn't say NOT to hook up the range and dryer with them!)

6-2-2009-15-30-59--turquoisedude.jpg
 
I wonder how many amps they could carry before they started to smoke.....

Kind of reminds me of people who I have seen plugging on computer extension cord bar into another to get more outlets. One time I saw 6 of them plugged all into each other!

Sometimes I really wonder if the people on this site are the only ones in the world with any common sense!
 
> Kind of reminds me of people who I have seen plugging on computer extension cord bar into another to get more outlets. One time I saw 6 of them plugged all into each other! <

Well, how dangerous this is depends on the devices. In this room I've got.. let's see... a total of 14 things going into a single plug, via 3 daisy chained power strips. It's been working great for 2+ years now. All of the devices except 2 are low power (DVD players, radios etc), and even when everything was turned on at once, it has never tripped the (20A) circuit breaker.
 
Still used one that was installed in 1986. Can't be used with anything that had an earth ground prong though. They should have had a strip for that too!
 
lack of polarization

Is definitely a bad thing - a former home I owned had no clear polarization anywhere in the flipping house! I used to get shocks from just about any metal cabinet appliance.
I could imagine these days that people would love these old power strips because they wouldn't have to worry about which way the plug went in!
One thing that I was pleasantly surprised about is that the outlets built into the counter of that GE Kitchen Centre of mine are properly polarized. I didn't think a lot of plugs from the mid-50's actually had the larger prong for the hot lead.
 
Polarization

Turquoisedude, I always thought that the big one was the neutral lead.
 
I could be wrong... Must be all the electric shocks I got as a kid from all the unsafe power bars! lol
 
I recall that when I was little, the barber shop my dad used to take me to had one of those power bars that must have been eight feet long. It went all the way across the wall under the mirror at the barber's station, and it had all manner of stuff plugged in -- clippers, trimmers, vacuums, sanitizers, etc.

Here's a scary thought: you used to be able to get extension cords that had a non-polarized plug, but polarized sockets at the other end. My great-uncle had a bunch of those because their house had non-polarized outlets, and they wouldn't take a polarized plug. No problem, just get one of these handy-dandy extension cords. Ignore that buzz you get when you touch the floor lamp! And let's not forget those adaptors that screwed into a lamp socket that was probably only rated for 1A.

It's amazing how cavalier the attitude used to be towards electricity, in some respects. Anyone who's ever worked on an "All American Five" radio knows to beware of the chassis, since it probably has the plate voltage on it. Grounding was often done with one of those adaptors that has a wire that ends in a clamp, and you clamp it to any handy water pipe, no matter where that pipe actually goes. And if there isn't a water pipe handy, what the hey, use a gas pipe. It's all metal, ain't it? It probably still beats what the guitar players used to do with their amps: just cut the ground prong off of the plug. And a lot of the old guitar amps had switches that reversed the hot and the neutral. If you plug it in and it shocks you, flip the switch. Of course, the switch will shock you too.
 
Polarization...

We never had that here and still I don't feel unsafe! It seems to me that American devices aren't properly designed when there is danger for electrocution when you push the plug in the "wrong" way. We treat the neutral wire with the same respect as the live wire.
 
Are most European appliances grounded? I know in the UK they have used an 'earth' or grounding wire for years, as is the case in Canada. When I lived in Brazil briefly in 2007, I don't ever recall seeing a grounded outlet or plug!
 
It depends, small equipment is usually "double insulated" and doesn't require grounding e.g. all "adapters' for computers, mobile phones etc. are not grounded, most electric tools (drills etc.) are not grounded, vacuum cleaners are not grounded. Larger equipment and appliances are usually grounded.
 
Theo, polarization is just one more safeguard to prevent electric shock regardless of device. You wouldn't stick your finger in a light socket, but a polarized table lamp keeps one from getting a shock should their fingers wander when changing a bulb.

The better built radios and TVs back in the day all had power transformers and thus filament and B+ voltages (returned through chassis) were isolated from mains. But, you could make cheap little radios and portable TVs without xformers by using series string tube filaments and voltage doublers off the mains. The "hot" chassis was then floated from the radio cases, but an occasional screwhead or control shaft (if you lost a knob), meant a risk of shock.

Looks pretty foolish in retrospect, but a transformerless set was lighter, cheaper and smaller so considered worth the sacrifice.

Remember cheater cords and set-back interlocks?
 
Oh my, I do! My father worked very briefly in TV servicing (in the late 1950's) and he said they used to discharge sets by tapping a screwdriver over the prongs of the plug. Would that have really done anything??
 
The larger

blade is always the identified connector (neutral) and never, ever the "live" connector.
That is always the smaller blade.
No exceptions.

Theo,
We use a relatively unsafe system which is to be replaced sometime in the coming decade (hopefully). Although the "Schuko" system is safe when the ground is actually connected to ground and not bridged across the neutral, the American system of ground and polarized plug is far safer. The UK system probably has the best solution of all with a fuse built right into the plug, ground and polarization. Unfortunately, the system has such gigantically big plugs (ok at the time introduced, way too big for today's technology) that it just doesn't appeal outside of the UK.

There is an unofficial DIN standard that the neutral is always on the "right" but that is meaningless and of no value with the Schoku plug. The Europlug is, of course absolutely worthless in that context.

What saves us is double insulation and the fact that our light bulb sockets, tho' nominally the same as the ones used in the US, actually have the contact pin for the side at the bottom of the socket so that one can not come into contact with current when unscrewing the bulb. The American system actually does expose you to one side of the power line when screwing or unscrewing the bulb into the socket. Same with their electrical plugs - there is a point during insertion and extraction during which one can contact the blades and get electrocuted.

It is enormously hard to change anything here in Europe where we are all fairly used to change and being practical. It is nearly impossible to change anything in the US where any change is always seen as the "socialists" taking away "rights".

That's why they still have that weird paper size and those funny feet with 13 inches to a foot and fourteen feet to a mile or whatever.
 
I remember in the late 80's and early 90's in our old house we had some outlets that were not polarized and to get a polarized plug to fit my father would use a bench grinder to grind down the larger prong to be the size of the smaller prong so it would fit into the non polarized outlets.
 
Keven, are you referring to the IEC 60906-1 plugs that will be introduced as the European standard? I fear that that will take a very long time. As far as I know that project has been put on ice. It would be nice though, those plugs are polarized and also smaller than the current Schukos and certainly smaller than the British monsters. Plus, the sockets are much easier to clean :-)
 
Yup, yup

I am discouraged. Infrastructure projects which are labor intensive should always be undertaken during times of high unemployment.

Instead, we are stuck with ancient technology which was considered a compromise even back then...

And, the new design would permit the North Americans to easily come up to the world standard.
 
With respect to polarized plugs etc: you may want to take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthing_system and see the cause of a bunch of choices. For the record, no system is perfect, all have at least one big flaw, and "safe" and "good" is all about what you are used to and/or grew up with. (Me? I'd take the Schuko plug in a heartbeat, I'm fine and used to the US plugs, but I think that the "ring circuits" in UK are a little too unsafe. People in UK will probably think I'm an idiot and their system is the best around. Most Americans I know think anything that is not polarized and/or grounded are an accident waiting to happen, without knowing or taking into consideration that a double-insulated appliance is *safer* than a grounded appliance, for example.)

The Schuko plug was developed for the IT system: the relevant property is the voltage *difference* between live conductors and/or live and neutral. In the IT system, for all you know, neutral might be 500 V from ground, and live might be 750 V from ground, and you still have 250 V between live and neutral, which is OK. So all conductors (except for ground) are to be fully insulated and treated as live. You can in fact invert the plug in the outlet and the appliance will still work properly and not shock anyone.

As far as I'm concerned, polarization was a band-aid solution brought on by the TN and TT systems we use. The proper solution would have been to ban chassis carrying current, neutral connections to ground (*except* at the breaker box, which is what the newest NEC finally dictates, after way too many years of refusing to think about it -- we still have way too many stoves, ovens and dryers with the neutral bonded to the ground, which is not safe), and, most of all, lamp sockets the way they are in North America. If you take one look at the lamp sockets, you can tell the difference immediately: here in US you see the metal from the bulb socket exposed, in other countries the metal is hidden inside the socket and safe from casual touching... can you still be shocked while changing the bulb? Maybe, but then it's a situation you're much more likely to be paying attention to, instead of casually reaching into a lamp to turn it on. If you think you are safe because "one side is neutral and it's polarized", I have a few bridges to sell to you. Every time I move I walk around the new home with an outlet tester, and I can't tell you how many times I had to rewire them properly because the neutral and live were reversed -- now, except for one home, they were all "new" construction (built in the 70's or later) and should have passed an inspection, not to mention their electricians were supposed to be licensed and be doing everything right. One of these days I should get me one of those adaptors that screw in the ceiling lamps and check that those are properly wired too, although, to be fair, I don't have the blind faith many in here have that they are properly polarized, so I always take extra care when changing light bulbs. I know way too many people who just climbed a metal ladder barefoot and were shocked and I don't want to add to the statistics.

For the record, I'm not saying here we should get rid of neutrals and polarized outlets. I'm saying they are not enough and provide a false sense of security. We'd be better off if new regulation for things manufactured now acknowledged that just polarizing the outlet or even providing a ground are not enough: we should manufacture household equipment/appliances as if all the wires were live and insulate things properly -- it's a real shame that first world countries still let people manufacture stuff that can readily cause accidents if the outlet is wired incorrectly -- how many people here have witnessed christmas tree light strings shorting out when they touched tinsel? "Oh, I know, that's no problem, let's just put a *label* on the strings saying they are not to be used with tinsel, it will be alright!" :-P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthing_system
 
Unfortunately, the system has such gigantically big plugs ..

Hey Guys

That may be true with rewirable plugs , but modern moulded ones- particually on low wattage equipment are actually not that big!.

The major advantage of the UK system is there is only one type of plug and socket so anything can be safely used from any socket. Also the ring main uses less cable and fewer circuit breakers.

I may be biased but I still much prefer it lol!

Seamus
 
Aluding to an above post, I'm curious what "World Standard" North America is falling short of? From what I've gathered, "standard" appears to be a very subjective and relative matter.

Here in the US, the codes have dictated grounded outlets and uniform wiring (polarized recepts) for the last 40+ years, GFCI's in wet locations (bordering on ridiculous), and now even arc-fault protection on bedroom branch circuits.

Double insulated tools and appliances have been around for decades (I always smile at the Selectric tags).

4-wire recepts for ranges and dryers have been a requirement for many years now also (despite still being able to buy the 3 conductor version).

We may be a 120v country, but that's neither here nor there.
 
Odd electrical standards

I think that it's far funnier that the rest of the world has uniform power with 17 different plugs than having the US and a few others using 110v instead of 220.

I remember reading once that schools in the USSR had 44v systems anywhere that the students could come in contact with. This has led to some rare but useless artifacts of Soviet memorabilia. I'm sure that this was used as propaganda to show how the USSR cared more for its children than the US did. Nevermind that if it carried enough amps to drive anything useful that it would still be fatal.
 

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