Wire Nuts

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400Hz

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I've been strippig out all of the old fittings and wiring from my house recently in preparation for a complete rewire. Lots of these old wire nuts have been used (within junction boxes) on the socket circuits.

Capture.JPG

Very common in the States I believe but glad that they will no longer be in the house. Wouldn't be surprised if they have been in there 35-40 years!
 
I wonder if Wagos will still be around in 35-40 years time. Doubt I will be around to find out though!
 
Large ones were NORMAL, small ones were MIDGETS

I came across some Lupus Midget MCBs a while back. Bit of research online failed to find time/current data, but did find a comment on a John Ward Video of where someone had looked up the patent number on one of the things and found it was filed by a Herbert Werner Wolff in 1957, so I guess dating back right to the start of circuit breakers on LV installations. They look somewhat similar to DS Loadmaster, so I'm guessing they might have licensed the design from this chap, and so probably BS3871 type 4. But that is beside the point. The guy has invented (one of?) the first Miniture circuit breakers, and had the surname Wolf, and so called his company/product "Lupus Midget" - litterally "Little Wolf" 😀

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/010213398/publication/GB779624A?q=pn=GB779624A😀
 
I came across some Lupus Midget MCBs a while back. Bit of research online failed to find time/current data, but did find a comment on a John Ward Video of where someone had looked up the patent number on one of the things and found it was filed by a Herbert Werner Wolff in 1957, so I guess dating back right to the start of circuit breakers on LV installations. They look somewhat similar to DS Loadmaster, so I'm guessing they might have licensed the design from this chap, and so probably BS3871 type 4. But that is beside the point. The guy has invented (one of?) the first Miniture circuit breakers, and had the surname Wolf, and so called his company/product "Lupus Midget" - litterally "Little Wolf" 😀

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/010213398/publication/GB779624A?q=pn=GB779624A😀
BS3871 was published in 1965 so any circuit breaker before this was not manufactured to a specific standard. I'm sure there were many but I know MEM and Crabtree produced devices prior to 1965.
 
BS3871 was published in 1965 so any circuit breaker before this was not manufactured to a specific standard. I'm sure there were many but I know MEM and Crabtree produced devices prior to 1965.
I would think anything that old is probably beyond it's working lifespan. I'm that age, born in 1965, I'm definetly not working right anymore 😃.

Testing MCBs is something that's always bugged me, as in we have no way of actually doing that, yet we rely on them to work correctly under fault conditions.
 
More wiring removed today. Found some of the original rubber insulated cable that had been 'spliced' onto during a later rewire on the upstairs lighting circuit under the insulation. Fabric tape used to 'make good' the joint. I had hoped to at least find the join soldered, but it wasn't to be. Amazing it lasted as long as it did!

Capture1.JPG Capture2.JPG
 
Fabric tape
remember it well, back in the day there was no PVC tape just rubber and this cloth pitch tape , the armoured supply cables where insulated with paper (all be it oil impregnated paper) it was still paper, cloth coated lead and steel banding, you had to sweat and wipe a joint, and fill it with pitch
 
More wiring removed today. Found some of the original rubber insulated cable that had been 'spliced' onto during a later rewire on the upstairs lighting circuit under the insulation. Fabric tape used to 'make good' the joint. I had hoped to at least find the join soldered, but it wasn't to be. Amazing it lasted as long as it did!

View attachment 16602 View attachment 16603
TRS rubber cable perishes and crumbles away!!
 
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