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Old 5th Mar 2021, 4:36 pm   #21
G6Tanuki
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

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Originally Posted by TonyDuell View Post
I'm pretty sure I've seen (and may have somewhere) an orange rubber plug. Possibly an old Duraplug.
Yes, I used to have an orange 13A Duraplug on the equally-orange 2-core flex back in the days when I had a Black&Decker electric lawnmower.

Orange plugs/cable are still normal on outdoor electric power-tools.
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Old 5th Mar 2021, 4:55 pm   #22
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

Yes, I remember seeing the brightly coloured plugs (and other electrical accessories) on sale in my local Woolworths in the late 1980s. I had a red one on my Sunbeam sandwich toaster!

And the BHS lighting department seemed to favour red plugs on their table and floor lamps for a while. Again, this was mid 1980s, when it was becoming standard practice for new appliances to be supplied with a factory-fitted plug (rewireable or moulded)
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Old 5th Mar 2021, 5:03 pm   #23
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

I still have in stock a box of 3 RS orange 13A plugs 488-438 from our production days.RS still stock them so there must be a demand for them.Peter.
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Old 5th Mar 2021, 5:11 pm   #24
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

I also remember that Legrand made their lovely Slimline plug (my all-time favourite plug!) in a variety of jolly colours. But I always preferred the white ones - they just look so nice

I still have quite a few in use to this very day...
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Old 5th Mar 2021, 11:11 pm   #25
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

Ah, bold coloured electrical accessories! Just the thing for the 1980s bedroom, as you donned your longest T-shirt and your shortest shorts and watched Top of the Pops on a mono portable .....

Ideally, your walls and furniture would be brilliant white, with occasional details -- door handles and electrical accessories -- in bold colours. Switches and socket faceplates came in fire-engine red, primrose yellow, British racing green and Navy blue; and if you could not afford to replace those, you could get the latest trendy "square slimline" style 13A plugs in the same colours for your favourite appliances to improve the appearance of plain white faceplates.

I suppose it made the feeble glimmer of the tungsten filament light bulb appear to go a bit further .....
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Old 6th Mar 2021, 10:56 am   #26
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TonyDuell View Post
I'm pretty sure I've seen (and may have somewhere) an orange rubber plug. Possibly an old Duraplug.
Yes, They were mostly fitted on lawn mower extension leads. J.
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Old 6th Mar 2021, 12:53 pm   #27
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

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Originally Posted by Lancs Lad View Post
What did you replace it with, emeritus?

I'd have been wanting to put a nice, sturdy MK plug on a 3kW electric fire!
It's probably most important that all the pin are nice and shiny-clean, and all the wires are done up tightly plus the fuse is a tight-fit.

Overheating in plugs on washing machines and other high-power appliances used for long periods seem quite common, with blackening around pins due to this. It's not so much of a problem these days, with manufacturer-fitted plugs that are often moulded plugs and wire connections inside welded-on.
(Although it seems rewireable ones are still used on many heaters, with moulded-ones mainly on white-goods)
I also recently found a cheap-looking 13A fuse in an extension lead plug, seem to have been overheating / was starting to come apart. With a better-looking replacement fuse, the plug no longer got hot!

If really wanting to use a vintage plug on something like this, then may want to give the pins a good clean-up, to ensure they have a low-resistance connection in the socket.
I remember a Red hard plastic? / bakelite? one being on the parents iron and must have dated from at least the 1970's. However, many vintage plugs are no longer compliant with later safety-regulations, as they don't have the partially-sleeved L&N pins, so would have to be removed if appliances re-sold commercially.
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Old 6th Mar 2021, 1:13 pm   #28
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

I have a rotary wire brush on one end of my bench grinder. It polishes up tarnished brass plug pins beautifully.
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Old 6th Mar 2021, 1:34 pm   #29
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

I do know that the carpet cleaner at work had a melted duraplug on it at one point because I spotted it and replaced it, my boss was not best pleased about it (although not with me as I was not the user).

The extension for it has an orange Permaplug and that is done up nice and tight and uses bootlace ferrules, gets cleanerd regularly and as such doesn't seem to have melted, although it does get quite warm in use, but a lot of that will be a mixture of a carpet cleaner that draws ~10A and the long extension creating voltage drop.

As for dirty plug pins, I have had tarnished pins cause an earth bond test to fail when doing portable appliance testing, so if the same happens to the L/N pins you can understand why a plug can get hot.
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Old 12th Mar 2021, 3:40 pm   #30
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

Going back to original post I still have these in my kitchen, they are darker than photo shows,made by clipsal now Schneider.
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Old 12th Mar 2021, 4:25 pm   #31
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

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Originally Posted by jonnybear View Post
Going back to original post I still have these in my kitchen, they are darker than photo shows,made by clipsal now Schneider.
John
I think the Clipsal ones are slightly later. I have some of that style, although white, from the mid 90s.
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Old 17th Mar 2021, 7:56 pm   #32
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

It may well have been used simply for decorative purposes in a home, but as others have mentioned, red fittings are and have long been used in various commercial or industrial environments to denote special supplies.

Most commonly red is used to denote a "critical" supply which has some form of back up in the shape of a generator or UPS. I have seen this convention used in hospitals, TV & radio studios, data/IT installations, and even in a National Trust lighthouse. In the latter case the red painted metal switches and sockets must date from the 1950s or earlier.

Edit to add.. South Foreland lighthouse, Dover
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Old 17th Mar 2021, 8:10 pm   #33
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

The aforementioned lighthouse...
A rather blurry image I'm afraid, but note the two adjacent light switches at the top of the stairs. They are of the square cast iron with a brass toggle vintage industrial sort. (I think... some had been replaced with the very earliest design of MK metalclad with the brown bakelite switch toggle)
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Old 17th Mar 2021, 8:46 pm   #34
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

Many years ago I bought a box of MK "medical equipment only" marked sockets and I use them in my bedroom / workshop. They are really well made.
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Old 17th Mar 2021, 10:27 pm   #35
duncanlowe
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

Sorry guys, but I come back to the fact that I remember selling these in various colours, when I worked in Woolies in the eighties. Purely as period colour features. And even more, we considered putting them in my parents kitchen when we did the eighties refit with red highlights. I do have an extension lead of the era, too, where the plug is an odd combination of the same colour red top, but with a black base, to match the red and black of the reel, and red flex. I kind of wish I had one of these switches of my own to show you.
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Old 20th Mar 2021, 4:50 pm   #36
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Default Re: Bright red light switch.

Besides medical equipment supplies in hospitals, red socket faceplates are often seen in industrial applications, to indicate a maintained supply -- or a non-maintained supply!

As Duncan alludes, bold coloured electrical accessories were also fashionable in the home in the 1980s.
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