Faulty mains plug?

[Julesomega]

Originally Posted by Julesomega

... until I need some more heavy duty plug tops, when I'll be down to Toolstation who do some very nice modern ones

The latest batch of 'heavy duty plugs' from Toolstation are nowhere near as nice as when I had some a couple of months ago. I just fitted one to a powertool and decided to look for something better in future. Fortunately I found some "Permaplug tough resilient" plugs. As with Toolstation the black ones cost about 50% more than white but I've got enough black for outside so I bought a big bag of white at a very favourable price. They have a proper cord grip

[Glowing Bits!]

Personally I don't like these so-called tough plugs, they tend to break too easy, the older plugs of yesteryear are far superior.

[Lancs Lad]

My lovely neighbour lent me a very old fan last month, when she could see I was wilting from the hot weather we were having here in Lancashire. She's got a posh new fan, by the way, so I wasn't depriving her!

It was so nice to have the cool breeze, but I was even more excited by the plug!

It's an almost perfect rubber Duraplug - the like of which I haven't seen for decades.

It's obviously had a few knocks and scrapes in its time, and is paint spattered, but, amazingly, the cable entry hasn't had the usual Stanley knife treatment.

I'm so tempted to replace it with another (safe and modern) plug, just so I can keep this lovely Duraplug and cherish it after I return the fan to my neighbour.

Isn't it just lovely, though?

[ValvoStef]

Originally Posted by Julesomega

A visitor here recently was impressed with the length of hedges around the garden, about 150yds, and offered a telescopic pole hedge trimmer to save me climbing on steps to reach the tops at about 8', said they couldn't use it due to arthritis. I don't know if they had ever used it, but it looked really useful so today I plugged it in, whereupon the thermal cutout on the extension reel tripped. I reset it and tried the cutter which worked just brilliant. Tried another cut and the cutout tripped again so I reset it and tried again. This time there was no response, the motor would not run

The Screwstation catalogue has a really nice one for about £60, but before I got the car out I took a few screws out of the gift unit and the switch worked fine and the Class-X capacitor was ok (measured 1.0MΩ) so I measured the connection from the plug to the switch. Open circuit! Easy fix, just replace the fuse! As I was holding the continuity tester I prodded it across the Bussman 13A fuse, which was perfectly ok

Must be the cable fractured just outside the plug, we've all seen that. Still holding the continuity tester I quickly disproved that theory but went on to find an O/C between the 'L' pin of the plug and the internal fuseholder

Is this a common problem with moulded-on plugs? Anyway, it was then cut off and an elderly Duraplug was fitted and now it all works fine. If I were really interested I'd test for intermittent shorting between the Live and Neutral pins when the plug is waggled

I'll save my trip until I need some more heavy duty plug tops, when I'll be down to Toolstation who do some very nice modern ones

With the absence of CE and BS marking I would be very weary to plug that thing into mains in any case. Those plugs appear more and more on the market.