Tag Archives: 110 volt plugs and sockets

Tuesday 16th December 2014 – WHAT A DAY!

It’s deen yet another wet, miserable day today – rained non-stop from morning to night. It’s been 12 days since I’ve had any decent solar energy and aren’t I glad that I changed the batteries over at the end of October and put the new ones in otherwise I would be struggling.

I knew exactly how it was going to be. Even though I had another early night, I woke up to hear the rain pounding down on the roof so I turned over and went back to sleep for another hour.

After breakfast I was back outside – or, rather, in the barn. I’ve sorted out all of the tools that I’ve been using and also done some tidying up there. There’s a dustbin completely full of rubbish that I’ve sorted out. I have, as you might have expected, found a few things that I had mislaid in the past and that’s always useful.

Another thing that I’ve done is to change a few plugs over. You remember that I bought a job lot of North American plugs a while back, only to find that they aren’t handed, which is a nuisance. However, there were several lights of various descriptions that I’ve found and of course the polarity of lights isn’t important. Consequently I changed four of the plugs over and that enabled me to recover four handed plugs and use four of the unhanded plugs instead.

I’ve moved the Ryobi Plus One 12-volt charger into the barn and that’s wired into the circuit, and I found a USB socket on a cigarette lighter plug – one that I had thrown away a while ago. But I managed to make it work this evening and so that’s now wired into the circuit too and the little *.mp3 player is currently being charged up on it.

There is also a row of hooks screwed into one of the roof beams and I’ve been hanging stuff there out of the way where it will still be to hand.

That’s all that I’ve done today. And it”s not surprising. With the miserable day that we had today, anything at all was better than that.

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Wednesday 26th June 2013 – HERE’S ANOTHER …

electricity shower room stud wall les guis virlet puy de dome france… photo of the new temporary electrical circuit here at Pooh Corner.

At first glance it looks very much like a close-up of the previous image but in fact a closer perusal will reveal the addition of a pair of American 110-volt sockets.

As you might recall if you are a regular reader of this rubbish and have been following these pages quite closely since right back at the very beginning, my house is powered by solar panels and wind turbines creating energy at 12 volts DC.

As a result I spent an inordinate amount of my time sourcing 12-volt appliances, because I can run these directly off my supply without the need for a transformer.

That calls for a 12-volt DC circuit around the house and that means that the cables will be carrying a heavier amperage (500 watts at 230 volts is just over 2 amps, but 500 watts at 12 volts is just over 40 mps).

And the heavier the amperage, the thicker cable – I use 6mm cable instead of 1.5mm cable.

Because North America runs on 110 volts instead of the European 230 volts, then more than twice as much amperage is required to power an identical appliance, and so the USA uses thicker cable.

Consequently all of their plugs and sockets are much more suitable for my purposes when it comes to a 12-volt system as they are built to handle heavier amperage and thicker cable.

So that’s what I’ve been doing this afternoon, expanding the 12-volt power circuit into the shower room.

All that remains to do now is to fit the wiring for the light circuit, drill two large holes through the outside wall for the air exchange, and then I can wallop the rest of the plasterboard onto the walls.

This morning though, once the sun had climbed well into the sky, I doused the weeds outside the house with this radical weed-killer that Liz gave me. I’m not quite sure just how well its going to work but it has to be better than nothing at all. I really do hope that it lives up to expectations.

I had a little relaxation in the evening and watched a John Wayne film – Fort Apache. This is one of what is known as “The Cavalry Trilogy” and is famous for two particular reasons.

  1. it’s probably the earliest mainstream film to look at the American genocide – if not holocaust – of its ethnic citizens from the point of view of the victims
  2. most of the action takes place over ground which I know extremely well, because you might remember that back in 2002 I drove for a couple of days through the Utah Desert and in particular through Monument Valley and The Valley Of The Gods where most of the action takes place. I recognised almost all of the sites and it brought back some very happy memories.
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Thursday 27th September 2012 – TODAY WAS A DAY …

… of finding things.

We started off, quite dramatically, by finding the missing mobile phone.

The good news is that the SIM card might actually still work.

The bad news is that the phone won’t, which is hardly surprising seeing as it’s been outside in the rain for the last 6 weeks and I found it in a puddle right where a load of water would regularly drop on it.

What’s surprising about this is that it was just outside the barn door, right where I walk at least twice every day without fail, and how I haven’t seen it before today is a total mystery.

Even more surprising is that if I heard it “bleep” 5 weeks ago up here in the attic – which I’m sure that I did – then there’s nothing wrong with my hearing, I’ll say.

Back in 2006 my dear departed friend Liz gave me an old Nokia ‘phone. It never worked properly and despite buying a couple of new batteries, the battery life worked out to be about 18 hours on stand-by.

For that reason I never really used it, and went to all kinds of lengths to replace it.

However I did lose count of the number of times it’s been pressed into service in an emergency and as I found it in Caliburn the other day when I was a-hunting the dictaphone, it’s now currently back in service.

At least until the new phone arrives.

I wanted an unblocked Samsung (so I just have one set of leads) tri-band (to use in North America) with bluetooth (for the hands-free kit in Caliburn), camera (so I don’t have to keep carrying the Nikon on odd little trips out) and memory slot (so I can use it as a walkman).

But I quickly abandoned that idea. The prices are unbelievable.

In the end I settled for another Nokia – a factory-refurbished 6230 for just £22 seeing as there are no chargers with it – and I have all of that anyway.

So in the mood for finding things, I then found the missing timer switch off the tabletop washing machine – just as I was fitting the machine with a plug with a built-in switch, of course.

The plug off there I fitted on the chop-saw that I bought ages ago and that works a treat too.

I also uncovered three battery chargers – two of them being the 7-Day Shop ones that I use for charging up AA and AAA batteries. And not just the chargers either – a further mega-search turned up some power cables for them.

So they are now fitted with North American 110-volt plugs – I use them for my 12-volt DC domestic circuit because they can handle high amperage and they are sufficiently different not to be confused with 230 volt stuff – and they are ready for action.

The third battery charger that I found is also for AA and AAA batteries, and why this is so interesting is that it has screw-holes on the back so that you can fix it to the wall.

This is quite an ancient machine too and I was pleased to see because I have a cunning plan for it. It was that I intended to screw it into the back of Caliburn and wire it into the ignition system so that there will always be some batteries on charge there.

No power cable, though.

But seeing as I was in the mood I turned out the barn and actually managed to find it, which astonished me.

While I had the ignition system dismantled, I took the opportunity of dismantling the power lead for the coolbox that I installed in Caliburn. I threw away the cigarette lighter plug (I hate those) and wired that directly into the ignition circuit.

And so we’ll have cold drinks wherever we go too.

I also unearthed a pile of connectors that I’d been looking for for ages, and a few other exciting bits and pieces as well. And I did a few other things, but I can’t rightly remember now what they were.

But I shan’t know myself at this rate, will I?

On the subject of finding things, by the way, I know that this might not be relevant but Heather came round this afternoon.

She has just come back from the UK and had brought me my order of porridge oats as well as some Rich Tea biscuits for Rosemary.

It’s the first time that Heather has been round, so she had to call at the doctor’s on the way for the Yellow Fever and Plague vaccinations before she arrived.

But at least I can now make some more muesli.

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Thursday 29th March 2012 – IT’S "NEW TOY" TIME AGAIN.

akai 12 volt DC DVD player television les guis virlet puy de dome franceI told you the other day that I had ordered a new DVD player – an AKAI 12-volt television, 16″ screen, with built-in DVD player.

Anyway, it turned up this morning.

First thing that I did was to cut off the cigarette lighter plug (I hate these) from the 12-volt connector lead, wired a fuseholder into the lead and then wired it up to an American plug.

Regular readers of thie rubbish will remember, but for the benefit of newer readers, I have a 12-volt electrical circuit running around the house, using American plugs and sockets.

I use them for the simple reason that they take heavier cable and I use 6mm cable for the circuit – the bigger the better to avoid voltage drop.

Anyway, the cable works and so does the DVD player. It even played one of the DVDs that wouldn’t work on the old in-car DVD, and the sound quality is exceptional.

I’m really pleased with it.

Only downside is the remote control. The keys are moulded plastic with the symbols moulded in., the same colour (light grey) as the keys. And so it’s really difficult to tell which key that you need to press, especially in the dim light.

But that’s a minor point.

Apart from that, then besides another couple of hours on the computer, I was outside in the garden for much of the day.

Another bed has been dug over and the remainder of the onion sets were planted and a few lines of leeks were sown.

After that I did a little hoeing and planted the beans that I had soaking, some cabbage, sprouts and cauliflower seeds.

I’ve also planted all of the raspberry plants that Liz kindly gave me in exchange for the lettuce from the other week.

All in all, it’s been another busy day today.

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Friday 6th January 2012 – IT’S BEEN …

… an exciting day today

Having been pondering over the battery situation here – to whit, the house batteries are losing charge when there’s no current and I had ample proof of that yesterday as I attached a little voltmeter to the battery bank and watched it go down and down – I decided to have a butchers at the battery bank.

I reckoned that there might be one battery that was overheating but I was wrong – there were in fact two of them all swollen up. No wonder the batteries were gently emptying themselves.

So I pulled those two out and I’m now down to just 8 batteries.

I’ve been suspecting that these 90 amp-hour batteries are just too small to handle a surge of about 50 amps on a regular basis and this seems to be confirming things. There’s four now that I’ve had to change, and it’s always been the one in the centre of the bank.

You may recall that I went to Paris to the supplier just before Christmas and they had some 200-amp-hour batteries on special offer and so I bought 8 of those. That will be a battery bank and a half.

Ideally I need even-bigger ones but an issue presents it self with that in that these 200-amp-hour batteries weigh 58kgs. While I can pick them up and walk with them, I can’t go far very quickly. Imagine twice the weight.

You might be wondering why I didn’t go the whole hog and fit them today. Believe me, it was my intention. But the battery cables that I have – 225mm – aren’t long enough. I’ve had to order some 375mm cables and they won’t be here until Thursday next week.

portable plug-in electrical board mains 300 watt inverter puy de dome franceThis afternoon, tired of manipulating inverters, timers and the like around, I made myself a plug-in electric board.

We start off with a two-pin American plug with 6mm cable wired into it. This goes to a 300-watt inverter screwed to the board. From there it’s into an electric meter and from there into one of the hour meters I bought in the UK.

Finally it ends up in a 13-amp UK socket.

All I need to do now when I’m carrying out some work somewhere around out of range of the main inverters is to take my little board with me and plug it into the 12-volt circuit.

After that I went to the bank to pay in a cheque, reorder my bread and then go for coffee and a chat with Marianne to catch up on the gossip.

It’s her birthday tomorrow, and that set me thinking about all the other people I know whose birthday it is in January. Krys, Marianne, Marianne from Brussels, Mandy. Those names spring straight away to mind and I bet there are loads more as well (so apologies if I have forgotten you).

It really is astonishing.

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Saturday 26th June 2010 – It was Karl and Lou’s chantier today …

karl hagen lapeyrouse puy de dome france… so Strawberry Moose and I went along to Lapeyrouse to see what was happening and to lend a hand.

Once again there weren’t all that many people there. The novelty of the idea is clearly wearing off as peoples’ own chantiers are completed. Liz and Terry, Clotilde, Francois, Jean, Hein (whom I met briefly for the first time at Kate’s the other day) and Yours Truly were the only attendees, and I was late arriving.

strawberry moose karl hagen lapeyrouse puy de dome franceHein’s wife and kids turned up later and of course Strawberry made a new friend. Good old Strawberry!

The girls (Lou, Liz and Clotilde) occupied themselves with painting 30 panels of OSB to put on the walls of the attic, while Jean and I put some guttering up to the side of the garage and connected a downpipe to the drain. I like working with Jean – he’s an old guy but very fit for his age and has a keen interest in woodwork and that kind of thing. We’ve done quite a few jobs together at various chantiers.

Terry, Francois and Hein spent the day working on the door to the barn. The previous owners had nailed it shut as the bottom had rotted off and the huge hinge had broken away, leading to a risk that the door might fall across the lane.

karl hagen lapeyrouse puy de dome franceThey unfastened it, removed it from the doorframe and lowered it onto some trestles. Once it was there they cut off the bottom part, screwed some new wood onto the frame, reinforced the frame, replaced the ironwork and then we all lifted it back into position.

In the photo just here you can see the work receiving close attention from the assembled multitudes. From left to right we have Karl, Jean (who is hiding Francois) Hein and Terry. Here they were refitting the stone that had the pivot hole for the lower hinge.

Back here the temperature in my room was an astonishing 30°C. But I am prepared for this kind of thing. I bought a heavy-duty in-car fan for just €3.99 the other day and I took off the cigarette lighter plug and replaced it with an American 110-volt plug (that’s what I use for my 12-volt circuits). It’s noisy but it doesn’t half blow the cool air around when you clip it into the frame of the open window.

A good move that!

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