What do you call the plug with no name? | Page 3 | on ElectriciansForums

Discuss What do you call the plug with no name? in the UK Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

Lucien Nunes

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Yellow for 110V, blue for 230V, red for 400V. Other colours for special applications.
16A, 32A, 63A and 125A, 2P+E, 3P+E, 3P+N+E.

You know what I'm talking about. They've been around for 50 years, but no-one can yet agree what to call them.

The official name is "plugs, socket-outlets and couplers for industrial purposes" according to IEC 60309 (formerly IEC309). They go by lots of different aliases... IEC309, BS4343, CEE17... but a lot of people use a manufacturers' name or trademark: Commando, Marechal, Ceeform, or just the current rating 'a 32A plug' or something relevant to them 'Caravan plug'.

What do you call them? Does it depend on who you're talking to?
 
It's MK's trademark and well known now, but I don't recall them having much market penetration in the earlier days of IEC309. I wonder how high their profile is outside the UK? It would be ironic for an internationally standardised design to be best known by the local manufacturers' names. The USA knows them as 'pin and sleeve' which is a rather broad description, but distinguishes them from plugs with flat prongs or blades which have always been more common there.

Schuko is also a trademark, owned by an association rather than any one manufacturer. The name is known globally, and is pretty much the only standard name for that type of plug in dozens of countries. You can ask for a Schuko plug in Spain, Iceland, Hungary or Switzerland, all of which have very different languages, and you will be understood. The word 'Schuko' is a contraction of 'Schutz-Kontakt' meaning earth contact, but this is incidental to non-German-speakers.

Perhaps we could do the same for 60309. We should think up a catchy name and popularise it, form an association, then once the name starts to gain traction we sell licences to manufacturers who want to market their 60309 product using that name.
 
In telecoms it is Commando, doing events it was Ceeform, it did get confusing at times...
 
Perhaps we could do the same for 60309. We should think up a catchy name and popularise it, form an association, then once the name starts to gain traction we sell licences to manufacturers who want to market their 60309 product using that name.

I vote for "nubbin plugs" due the the locating nubbin on the plastic moulding to ensure correct insertion.
 
Well if we can call them any names we want, I vote for "Tarquin Fin-tim-lim-bim-lim-bin-bim-bin-bim bus stop F'tang F'tang Ole Biscuitbarrel"
 
[ElectriciansForums.net] What do you call the plug with no name?
 
I think you'll find it is the members who are keeping this forum/thread going, Pete...we all like some odd-ball time, after all...
I think you'll find it is the members who are keeping this forum/thread going, Pete...we all like some odd-ball time, after all...
I agree, but what to call a plug, get a grip, from a long term member just call it "Top" and be done with it, JEZZ
 
Or who gives a ****!!!!!!!!

One of my customers did, as a supplier had given them bad advice and they had ended up getting a quote to replace some hundreds of IEC 60309 plugs with the same plugs under a different name. I was on the point of being sent a purchase order for 'Cee17 to Commando adaptors'.

It made me wonder what people in other branches of the industry knew them as. If you don't ask the question, you don't find out.
 
Ceeform for me
Ceeform for me
[ElectriciansForums.net] What do you call the plug with no name?

CEE FORM seems to me the best name to avoid brand and refer instead to 'Certification of Electrotechnical Equipment - CEE'

The link shows the colour coding table and rules for colour, voltage, frequency, ac/dc combination.

Re: Davesparks black shark plugs - black has entries in the colour coding table.
 

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