Discuss Identify this socket... in the Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

Welcome to ElectriciansForums.net - The American Electrical Advice Forum
Head straight to the main forums to chat by click here:   American Electrical Advice Forum

A

Anon84

Hi, I was hoping someone might be able to help me identify this wall socket in my house. Its been bugging me for years and searching online doesn't bring anything up.

Thanks.

Identify this socket... download - EletriciansForums.net
 
Welcome to the forum Anon84 ..... It's not anything I recognise as been an electrical point, can you explain it's location and why you think it's a socket plate?
 
To me it just looks like a air vent.. but if you could give the whole picture what is around it as well as some means of being able to see how tall it is ..

a few dabs of white and i think yellow paint on it
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The whole pattern of slots covers about a 1" x 3/4" area. Its in the centre of a wall mounted plate of the same dimensions as a single 3-pin electrical socket plate. It's mounted 8-10 inches off the floor in the corner of my living room, near the aerial point, on an internal wall.

I'll get a better picture when I get home later and will unscrew it to see whats behind it, if anything. I hadn't considered the possibility of it being a vent with it being so small but you never know.
 
At a very rough guess, it is a socket for a very old cable television system, sometimes run by Rediffusion or similar. Behind it you should find a multi core cable similar to phone cable with several tightly twisted pairs in it.
 
Looks exactly like very old (1960's) multicore computer interconnect cable terminations to me. The plugs to mate with it used to have a thick (1/4") bakelite base with the prongs embedded init, solder tag terminals on the rear, and plastic boot to cover the soldered and then a steel cover with external strain relief. Great big ugly things and the cable going into them used to be very flexible and soft but looked thick enough to be for a shower supply... it was mainly rubber sheath, screening and inner braid though. Never seen one in a wall plate before - only on the back of equipment cabinets. If you ever visit National Computer Museum at Bletchley Park you will see hundreds of the things on old mainframe machines.
 

Reply to Identify this socket... in the Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

OFFICIAL SPONSORS

Electrical Goods - Electrical Tools - Brand Names Electrician Courses Green Electrical Goods PCB Way Electrical Goods - Electrical Tools - Brand Names Pushfit Wire Connectors Electric Underfloor Heating Electrician Courses
These Official Forum Sponsors May Provide Discounts to Regular Forum Members - If you would like to sponsor us then CLICK HERE and post a thread with who you are, and we'll send you some stats etc

Electrical Forum

Welcome to the Electrical Forum at ElectriciansForums.net. The friendliest electrical forum online. General electrical questions and answers can be found in the electrical forum.
This website was designed, optimised and is hosted by Untold Media. Operating under the name Untold Media since 2001.
Back
Top
AdBlock Detected

We get it, advertisements are annoying!

Sure, ad-blocking software does a great job at blocking ads, but it also blocks useful features of our website. For the best site experience please disable your AdBlocker.

I've Disabled AdBlock