Quote:
Originally Posted by gramophone1
Thanks guys for all the replies. I have seen pictures of the brown bakelite two pin plugs. The pins weren't shrouded, they must have been dangerous. Catch your fingers on the round pins as your pull the plug out, and I bet you got a nasty shock. I would be surprised if it didn't happen often.
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Yes, many (pre-WW2 built?) Schools in the West Midlands seemed to use 2 pin sockets on a panel with plugs on slider-Rheostat dimmers to patch into the stage lighting in the main hall. The sockets didn't have built-in switches, although there were switches elsewhere on the board.
And I recall getting a bit of a shock whilst hot-swapping (as it got rather warm running the 500W Flood light, as they were probably only intended for not much more than 100W) one back in the 80's, whilst assisting with lighting on a production.
Although BS1363 3pin plugs didn't have partially-sleeved L&N pins back then, I never managed to touch a pin whilst plugging one in - probably because they have much more of the plug's body at the side, unless you use the non-UK narrower triangular unfused ones that you sometimes find, but were designed for use in other countries that moved onto using the same rectangular-pin plugs.