Storing cables

Indeed. Those are everyhwere here. I even have (and could probably find) ones with Aemrican (117V and 234V) plugs, German Schuco plugs, and maybe others... ^^^^^^^^^^ What does that look like ? 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. As for electronic equipment, just about everything modern uses one of the IEC 320 connectors. The one we've been talking aobut, the smaller 'figure of 8' 2 pin one (used on radios, tape recorders, non-earthed laptop power brickes, etc) and it's 3 pin version (used on earthed power bricks). BEfore those were common, there were a series of circular connecotrs, in at least 1.5A and 5A versions with 2, 3 or 6 round pins. SOem of the older ones don't meet safety standrds now, becuase you could unscrew the cover of the cable-mounted part iwthout needing a tool and expose live terminals. But tater ones were held together with screws, and last time I looked were still being made. -tony