Current mood:	sleepy
Current music:	Rocky Racoon - The Beatles
Entry tags:	geeky stuff

Electric plugs and sockets frenzy
It started in the morning. I put the kettle on, but it wouldn't work. Turns out that it had the exact same problem I had with the air conditioner a few days ago - the socket heat up and melted. The kettle is new and has a standard plug. But its cable is ridiculously short - about 80cm - so it doesn't reach the socket. So I used an extension cable, and its plug is not standards-compliant.


On the left: old standard. On the right - new standard. In the middle: standard socket, which accepts both old and new plugs.

The thing was on a triple power strip. Most of the sockets in my house have multiple things connected to them - it's an old apartment and doesn't quite cover the power needs of the 2000s. Yes, I know it's not considered safe. But other than the power strip to which both the fridge and the dishwasher are connected, none of the strips is used by two power appliances at the same time.

Anyway, I took a look at the melted power strip to which the kettle was connected, and realized that its plug side was old-standard. Took a look at other triple-strips in my home, and most of them were the same.

In my bedroom I have a strip to which the air-conditioner is connected, but also the electric fan and the standing lamp. That is, the standing lamp used to be connected to it until I added a timer for the air conditioner. The timer is too wide to have three plugs connected at the same time.

So, the plan unfolded thus: I got some gift certificates that are valid in the DIY shops (ACE and Home Center) for the holidays. I'd go to one of them, buy myself a few standard plugs and replace the plugs on my remaining air conditioners with them. I'll buy some standard triple-strips and replace the old ones with them. And I'll buy a big wall mountable power strip, and replace the triple-strip in my bedroom with it - making sure all the plugs are standard.

Shopping went well and I got 4 plugs, 2 triple strips and 2 mountable strips (I intend to use one to replace the one I'm using with my UPS). When I returned home I quickly replaced the plug on the extension cable for the kettle, and replaced the triple strip there. I also replaced the triple strip for the fridge and dishwasher. But I noticed that those appliances are pre 2006, and therefore their plugs are old-standard.

Then I went to the bedroom with the intention of mounting the large strip - but there I was in for a surprise. See the socket up in the image above? That type of socket has been around since 1989, when the new standard was set (plugs were only superseded since 2006). Anyway, both sockets in my bedroom are old standard, that is, they were installed before 1989! A check revealed that this is also true for one of the living room sockets and one of the computer-room sockets. In the old standard sockets, the two top contacts (live and neutral) are dual-shaped like the new standard (because in Israel we have also been using the Euro standard two-prong non-Earthed plugs for a long while), but the bottom contact, the Earth, is rectangular. So the new standard earthed plugs won't go in and I can't mount my large strip or anything else with a new standard socket.

Now I'm wondering whether it's simply a matter of removing the socket caps and drilling a round hole in the middle of the Earth hole - or are the contacts themselves in the wrong shape. I think I needn't worry too much about the area of contact in the Earth - it's not supposed to carry a large current anyway, and the safety switch would drop a long time before any goes through it. So I'll take a look at it tomorrow and see if the drill solution will work.

Anyway, I replaced the plugs on both the air conditioners, but now I'm thinking I should do the same for the fridge, the washing machine and the oven - and if so, I'll need to buy more plugs. By the way, it never ceases to amaze me what happens inside sockets and plugs that I implicitly trust. The bedroom air-conditioner plug, for example, had its live and neutral wires mixed, never mind the messy exposed ends of the wire, and the way the wires were twisted because they were too long. The same was true for the socket I did last week. How about cutting the wires to the correct lengths (meaning the Earth will be shorter than the others, not twisted and squeezed to fit), twisting their tips in one direction and cutting off excess exposed wire? Too hard to ask? And polarity! It's your life, people!

While I'm at it, to replace the power strip for the UPS I'll need to cut the plug off one of the large strips I bought, and fit it with an IEC plug, because on APC UPSs, all the outlets are IEC.

Yay for cutting, stripping, screwing and securing!