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Life just gets better - well somethings do

Posted in Home on October 9, 2008 at 10:18 am

I’m not sure if this is about technology or engineering - maybe I should look up the definitions but I’m not that bothered… What I’m fascinated by is how even the simplest things can be made better.

I needed to put a 13 amp plug on an appliance the other day and I had an ancient rather stylish brown (bakelite I assume) one laying around so I thought I’d use it. I could see it was chunky (you need a decent space to use it as it is 23mm deep) and brittle (but I didn’t intend dropping it or using it in rough environment) so I thought it would be OK - a plug is a plug right?

No, the screw holding the cover on is not captive so you lose it, the terminals are nuts (hex with a slot to take screw driver, as long as the driver is wide enough to span the nut). As they are nuts you have to wrap the cable under them (& a washer) hoping you’ve done in the right way so it doesn’t screw out as you tighten them. As you do tighten them the strands of copper spread as far as they can. The Live terminal is under the fuse so you have to remove the fuse to reach it and the cable grip is some kind of fibre board so over tightening will soon strip the threads.

So there you go, hurrah for the steady improvement in design and materials / manufacturing techniques that affect even the meanest areas of life.