Plug adaptors of the past
 

Hi all I know that even in the 1980s tradespeople who needed to plug equipment in customers houses had the problem of not always being guaranteed that it would be of one particular sort or another. I know the man who used to repair our TV had a fit all plug on his soldering iron and others in the trade had several short leads with a socket on one end and a different plug on the other for each of say 5 different types. All well and good something I remember seeing was our chimney sweep had an industrial looking vacuum cleaner where its mains lead was connected into what looked like an adaptor which then plugged into the socket my question is was there a multi fitting plug/socket arrangement that was like that or did he literally just put the wires in the adaptor of choice for whatever socket the customer had. Sorry if this has been a bit long winded

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

You mean one of these:
https://www.flameport.com/electric_m...itall_plug.cs4

Malcolm

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

Hi,
I have one of those 'Fitall' plugs.
I never used it seriously, but as a bit of a novelty.
It was fiddly to wire up and had no cord grip. When selecting the pins you wanted, some of the others would also pop out as well. Not good with metal clad sockets!
I also have another Fitall product. It's an 'Easy fit' plug that could be attached without tools. Not sure what the idea was. Maybe for temporary use? The wires were inserted into the barrel and locked with a plastic ring. A second ring secured the sheath. Said barrel was then inserted into the body of the plug and locked by turning the earth pin. It was possible to plug in the empty body, thus posing a shock hazard! 8-o
Cheers, Pete.

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

I think 'Loblite' made a version of the multiplug adaptor and I also vaguely remember a wirelex adaptor of some sort for fitting a 5A plug to a 15A socket. Some of the adaptors were made to use UK equipment overseas, whilst others were for the UK markets.

Dave

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

I remember those easyfit plugs were popular in lighting-shops back in the days before everything came with pre-installed plugs. It was not unusual to see an Easyfit with about six lamps connected to it, the cables' outer sheathing being stripped-back for quite a few inches so it didn't take up room in the entry-point of the twisty-thing.

"Safeblocs" and "Keynectors" were also popular in lighting-shops.

Somewhere I've still got a strange adaptor-cable - a 3-pin 15A "Hubbell" as used on London-Underground, six inches of flex, and a 15A 3-pin Duraplug trailing-socket.

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

The Fitall was popular with people giving slide or cine shows to clubs, societies etc where you never knew what sockets would be available.

A parallel problem in earlier days would be whether the hall was AC or DC! Projectionists would carry a neon so they could check - one electrode glowing = DC, two = AC.

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

I remember someone who was a TV engineer mentioned he had to carry a set of adaptors for his soldering iron when making repair calls as it was possible to encounter different sockets.

The Fitall doesn't provide for Wylex or D&A sockets by the look of it.

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

Hi Malcom yes thats the beast I think they were expensive for most people i think our TV guy must of been rich. I'm not old enough to remember DC mains however I do remember for some reason we often had reduced mains volts at home leading to hum bars on the screen was a pain but led me to me wanting to really get into how things worked. A friend of my nans had a couple of D and S sockets in her house in the kitchen the rest of the house had a mix of 2 and 3 pin 5 amp sockets fromm what I remember

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

There was the Crater plug which fitted all six BS round pin gauges, 2 and 3-pin.
https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/Crater-plug1.html

There were three different incompatible ranges of Wylex plugs, but the standard polarised versions came in 2, 5, 13 and 15A ratings. Plugs would fit sockets of equal or larger rating and all but the 15A contained a fuse, so one adaptor cable for the iron fitted with a 2A Wylex polarised plug gave compatibility with all ratings of socket.

AFAIK there were never ready-made solid adaptors between BS gauges and Wylex / Wandsworth / Dorman Smith / BS196 (for industrial use) so they would all have required a cable making up.

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

Dad had nade short adaptor leads to 3 pin 5A for my uncle, whose 1920's council house had "Wandsworth" sockets. I did a similar thing in the early 1970's for my uncle when the council moved them from their pre-fab bungalow (fitted with 3 pin 5A plugs) to a pre-fab house of similar vintage fitted with D&S 13A sockets. While new D&S plugs were still readily obtainable locally at that time (at a price), multiway adaptors were unobtainium, and the adaptor leads allowed them to continue using their existing 5A plugs and multiway adaptors until the house was rewired with conventional 13A sockets a few years later.

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

Presumably all these ingenious multi-adaptors were banned from sale when partially-sleeved L&N pins became a requirement - If they ever met BS plug standards.
And were the forerunner of later universal Travel adaptors - where it seems virtually all are non-compliant, as it's difficult to design something universal that is, and were a regular item on the rapex etc. safety recall lists.

The flameport name of that Electrical company is amusing - reminds me of LiIon batteries that often have names like WonderFire...

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

Hi,
Although not an adaptor between standards, it is a two way D&S adaptor.
I've never seen another, despite being given many D&S plugs and sockets over the years.
Cheers, Pete.

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

The D&S adaptor looks just like one I saw at a friend's house in the early 1970's, where his parents had lived since it was built in the 1950's. Another presumably rare item would be the two-way "Wandsworth" adaptor that my barbers' shop in Dagenham was still using in the second half of the 1970's for their electric hair clippers and hair dryers. Being private its original pre-war installation had not been rewired with 13A sockets when the surrounding council estate had been done in the 1960's.
Something I have never seen, but presumably does exist, is an adaptor from anything to 2 or 3 pin 2A sockets.

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

I've never seen a 2-way Wandsworth adaptor (presuming we are talking about the type with three round pins in an isosceles triangle, with sleeved line and neutral and a slotted earth that operates the switch).

Grelco, Clang and others offered 2A 2- and 3-pin sockets in various adaptors, often overmapping another larger socket as an either/or option. E.g. Grelco 2-pin 5A to 2x 5A or 1x 5A + 1x 2A. Clang did a 2-way 15A with an optional 2A 3-pin in the rear face which looks a bit daft. 15A to 2A raises questions about the suitability of the flex to withstand the short-circuit I²t of the circuit fuse and is rare in a single adaptor.

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

Wandsworth connectors seemed to last for a while where a non-standard supply was required, like some of the other unusual plugs & sockets.

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

Yes, it was the slotted earth pin type. The two sockets were one above the other on sides inclined at about 45° to the side with the plug pins like some 3 pin 2A adaptors I have. I didn't know then that the slot was provided to operate a switch and I have wondered since if the adaptor also incorporated switches. The barber always seemed to have left the plugs plugged in.

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

Hi, In my early days of television repair the chap I was apprenticed to had a BC plug wired to his soldering iron with a Fitall plug wired to a BC socket, he also had D&S and Wylex plugs wired similarly to BC sockets. It was often standard practice to plug the soldering iron into a convenient lamp in a customers household.

I think our chimney sweep had a similar arrangement although ISTR that he had a two pin 5 amp plug connected to the end of his vacuum cleaner flex with a BC to two pin adapter and then a set of plugs and BC sockets wired similarly to the ones I mention above.

Andrew

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

The Wandsworth plugs that I encountered were exclusive to local Authority flats in the London Borough of Wandsworth London. As far as I know they were not generally available in electrical shops and were quite expensive.

They could be purchased at the Council offices. In all the many years I carried out house service calls I never came across them in privately owned houses. They were a neat and well constructed plug with the screwed in fuse that was almost impossible to bodge wire or short the fuse out with cigarette paper foil, a common trick with the standard 13 amp plug. John.

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

I remember when I was little my mum took me and my brother to a hairdressers and barbers in the village upstairs the hairdressers was fairly modern including having 13 amp sockets for the dryers and various other bits if electrical equipment however the barber downstairs was a different matter there were several 15 amp sockets one of which had a lead plugged in which had a 13 amp socket on the end for a hairdryer presumably borrowed from upstairs the other one was oddly about halfway up the wall I never saw it used for anything it was in such an odd position I doubt it had a practical use. The third had a clang adaptor in it with one 15 amp outlet and 2 5 amp one of the 5 amps was used to supply a DAC 90 radio which played away happily in its corner for years. Tuned I think to 1500 meters. Also he had an electric clipper which had a very long lead on it plugged into a 2 amp socket this was the only one with surface mounted wiring when I asked why the barber told be years before the building had been struck by lightning which destroyed the wiring and socket that was there before so someone simply added a new socket with surface wiring.. I somehow doubt this story as lightning usually ruins a whole installation not just one socket but we will never know for sure

Re: Plug adaptors of the past
 

I often see Wandsworth plugs mentioned but have never even seen a picture of one let alone the real thing. Even the plugsocket museum does not have them.

http://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/index.html

Nor can I find them on Wikipedia or other internet sources.

Can anyone put me out of my misery with a picture please?