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Overpowering

Head Rambles Posted on by

Modern electrical plugs really piss me off.

Who was the bright spark who came up with the idea of sticking a transformer in the plug itself?  Did they not realise that those plugs have virtually rendered three-way adaptors obsolete?

I have quite a few of those adaptors.  You know the ones – like a white cube with sockets on the top, side and front?  Stick a transformer type plug in and it promptly transforms a three-way adaptor into a two-way adaptor.  Very fucking clever.

I have had to bin most of my adaptors and have replaced them with those long panel things with four or six sockets.  They are all over the house now.  And every single one of ‘em seems to be full.  In some areas I even have panels feeding other panels which leads to a right mess of cables.

My favourite place is the junk room.  That has two standard sockets like any normal room.  However, that is where the Interweb enters so I need sockets for

  • The broadband aerial
  • Two routers
  • A network hub
  • PC
  • PC’s monitor
  • Printer
  • Phone
  • My little server thing serves all my music
  • The external drive that holds all my music

powerpoint

All of that comes off one socket in the wall.  Ten plugs; one socket?  The other socket is taken by a freezer unit I keep in there.  There are so many patch-panels, power cables and network cables in there that there is no room for any junk.  And before anyone whinges about fire hazards, they are all very low power consumption, but there is just one hell of a lot of ‘em.

Why can’t someone invent wireless power?

 

Comments

Overpowering — 24 Comments

  1. Looks like you could do with a bit of a tidy up in there old chap!

     

    Or perhaps some Bolognese sauce ??!!

    • Every time I tidy it, within a day or two something needs to be plugged or unplugged and everything gets tangled again.  I gave up in the end.

      Not a bad idea about the sauce though.  I might try that.

  2. That lot should help devalue your pad for property tax liability.  If it makes you feel any better any IT guy's place looks like that, maybe even worse!    ahem!

    • Do I want to look like an IT guy?  If it's any consolation, that is probably the tidiest corner of the room.

    • There were so many network cables in that dump room that most of the boxes talk via wireless even though they are beside each other!  The routers [naturally], the printer and the media box are all wireless.  They still need power though.  🙁

  7. i dream of the day…just finished setting up wireless printer (that plugs in of course) wireless key board and wireless mouse….now i'm in hock for batteries, ya can't win

    • I avoid wireless keyboards and mice like the plague.  Apart from the constant batteries, I lose the mouse too easily if it isn't tied to the puter.

  8. Not to worry you old chap but I think the risk of fire tends to be either when one of those little power block plugs runs hot or when a connection into the plug is disturbed so it's not quite home and it arcs, so being low power stuff doesn't help you too much.

    FWIW I have a couple of long 6 way adapters fixed just under my desktop along the back, that keeps all the muddle off the floor, but I agree UK plugs are very poorly designed and much too large. French ones are better because you can plug a small low power 2 pin plug into a 3 pin socket or get multistrips with mostly just small 2 pin sockets.

    • I'm well aware of the risks.  I had to get the house rewired last year as it was developing a couple of hotspots in the fuse box and a couple of the sockets.  I keep a regular check on the junk spare room setup!

  9. I don't believe there is anyone in the world whose computer system doesn't look like that, and the space behind the TV is even worse.    Don't bother with those spiral- coil wire tidies either unless you never need to take any equipment out……it's even worse than putting the wires in!!

    • You mean that's normal?  *sigh of relief*

      Those spiral yokes are just designed to make the clutter even more unworkable!

  10. Someone did invent wireless power Grandad, his name was Nikola Tesla, and as soon as the controllers realised what the implications where ( unmeterable power) they pretty soon put a stop to that! He died a broken man

  11. Due to the entire upstairs having 2-line, 100 year old, cloth covered wiring, we had to run two 100 ft, 3 wire extension cords from one of the kitchen outlets (updated 3 wire, "grounded" socket), through an old stove pipe hole in the ceiling to the computer room upstairs. Each of these extension cords has a six, 3-way outlet, surge protected power bar for each of our computers and associated peripherals.

    I do my best not to think about it.

    • Heh!  So I'm not alone then?  One of these days they'll pass a building bylaw that all rooms gave to have at least twelve sockets!

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