atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information bell system ks8740 soldering iron

Hal, we had some outlets like that at our high school.

A lot of the telco trucks use a 1-20 receptacle for 12vdc power on the trucks.

That's something I was thinking about too. It would be a real good idea to measure the resistance of that iron and figure the voltage before plugging it in.

-Hal

I also see inverters on the cable tv guy's trucks.

Jeff:

That's a typical NEMA 5-20 configuration, as in 120 volts, two wire with ground, 20 amps.

Hal:

I seem to recall that Bell came up with an intentional misfit for the plug connection. It would be pretty difficult to find that type of receptacle within a modern building. I think that they did the same thing with a two-wire Twist Lock connectors as well.

Actually, now that I think about it, we had some outlets with both of the blades of the plug going horizontally. What would that be for?
I know with the twistlocks we use for our power distros, there are old and new style connectors and they don't match up. Something about the ground pins being reversed.

Jeff, it is the weekend. You are a college student and should be out having fun instead of worrying about plug configurations.

Ed, you don't have to worry about that

Jeff, that would be a NEMA 6-15 which is 15A/220V.

-Hal

Crap. I thought that Jeff's illustration was looking at the face of the plug, not the receptacle. Big difference.

Come to think of it, haven't I seen some of our friends from north of the 49th parallel saying that 120V 20A receptacles up there are still available without the T-slot of NEMA 6-20 used in the U.S.?