27 Nov
2011
27 Nov
'11
6:08 a.m.
On Nov 26, 2011, at 2:48 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
It's just some square 2-conductor plug that doesn't resemble much of anything out
there. My in-laws (who introduced me to percolators) have a few of them, but since they
got their percolators from yard sales, I have no idea when Farberware decided to start
standardizing; I'd guess that most of these pots date back to the '70s or earlier.
:-) Still quite functional, though.
I think this one might have that as well. Pretty sure most of the "computer"
power cords I have are rated at 10A, but they don't have the notch down the middle,
which would mean I'd have to modify one to plug the thing in.
Interestingly
enough, we got a new coffee percolator recently that has
an IEC cord. That's very convenient, because replacements for the old
Farberware ones were getting hard to find. I understand, though, that
^^^^^^^^^^
What does that look like ? this is common
practice in Europe for tea kettles?
Yes. Well, actually the conenctor on an electric kettle over here is the
'hot condtion' one with a notch on the socket and ridge insdie the
plug. Originally, the 'normal' one, as used on computers, was rated at
6A, the 'hot condtion' one at 10A. I could never work out why, the
contacts were identical. Now it appears all are rated at 10A. A common term for the sort of mains lead we're
talking about, whether
'hot condition' or not, is a 'kettle lead'.
Older UK electrica kettles had one of 2 conenctorm The older one was flat
with 2 roudn pins on the kettle. The outer shell of the socket part had
spring contacts which conencted to the kettle body whenm youp lugged it
in, providing the earth connection. The somewhat later one was a circular
connector about 3cm in diameter with 2 round plins for the live and
neutral wires and a flat earth pin. There have been others too.
Here in the US, we don't need that sissy grounding! We take our lethal electric
shocks like men. :-)
Seriously, some of the poor grounding in our electrical equipment is shocking (har har) to
say the least. My wife's grandparents' house still doesn't have three-prong
outlets anywhere (these weren't common in the US until... I don't actually know
when. Probably the '50s or '60s? Anyone?). They use those horrible 2-prong to
3-prong adaptors with the little metal screw eye at the bottom that's supposed to
screw into the center screw on the outlet plate (which makes the assumption that your
junction box is grounded, which it often isn't in older houses). Of course, most of
those adaptors aren't attached to the screw, and they just happily run power strips
with brand-new TVs, refrigerators and computer equipment over to them.
- Dave