Yes I thought "Kettle lead" and shot off to the kitchen. Er nope, our kettle has a standard IEC connector as found on a million and one PC's. So rummage through cable collection and discover a cable with a somewhat longer IEC connector. Yes! it has a groove opposite the middle connector. But, what's this? The groove does not extend to the front of the connector. It must have been designed to work with a spring clip that was depressed as the connector was inserted and clicked into place when the plug was fully home. Needless to say, removing the small piece of plastic to extend the groove to the front took seconds and it fits. However its not the 'right' cable. I have read the manual for the 4000-300 and theres a nice section on the plug. However it refers to it as the 'power cable shipped with your system'. The picture shows it to be a right angled type and there's a picture of the various wall socket end plugs. None of them are UK 13Amp type. Whilst working at DEC I had a mains cable problem with terminals. The US claimed the German type (Round with two round pins) was standard for the UK. The guy came over for a meeting and I asked him to plug in the terminal using his 'British' standard cable. That cost him a very nice evening out. The solution? We shipped an IEC cable that had a standard UK 13A plug moulded on the other end. They took it to their cable sub contractor. He said "Oh you ment those!" He had thousands in stock and they were cheaper than the one they normally shipped!!! So whilst what I have will probably run, its not the correct cable. It should be a right angled IEC type with a groove or slot opposite the middle pin. Rod Smallwood DecCollector -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: 31 May 2007 00:28 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Power plug for a VAX 4000-300 Sounds like a 'hot condition' IEC connector. It was originally used on kettles, and the like, and was designed (a) to withstand higher temperaturs than the normal on, and (b) it's rated at 10A (IIRC), the normal one being originally rated at 6A. It's the latter that's important here. Any dectnet electronics shop in the UK would stock it. -tony