Room I have picked for the office has no fewer than 7 double sockets, 2 aerial points and three of these which I have no idea what they are
5 amp lamp socket
Usually connected to a switch so you can switch lamp on from your wall plate switch…they are all the rage …
Deathy McVoltface
I don’t get it? Why not just use a standard 3 pin plug?
They can be switched off with the main light switch.
Part of your lighting rig not your mains set up.
I’ve always seen a lot of the Lamp sockets at Hotels/Pubs, I guess to stop punters plugging other things in?
Being on a switched lighting circuit theye are usually fused at 6 Amps. It’s important that you cannot plug items which use more current than that into them so they have to be different. They may be ‘all the rage’ now but were quite common years ago before square pinned 13 Amp plugs were used and houses had a mix of [then] 5Amp and bigger 15 Amp round pinned sockets.
5A lamp sockets used to be used alot in student halls of residence, to stop them plugging in # growing rigs
they were useful to control side lams etc, so you wouldnt have to scramble around looking for switches etc… completely pointless with smart bulbs these days.
Assume they are just on the same radial lighting circuit?
It’s for the cleaner, as a safety measure…
Yep, should be, though I did wire in a separate lamp circuit downstairs in three rooms once in a huge house
Lighting circuits usually have a 6A circuit breaker in the consumer unit. If you were to run a 13A socket off such a circuit and plug a kettle in then the consumer unit breaker would trip, which would be inconvenient but not dangerous.
An important point is that neither these ‘5A’ plugs nor their ‘15A’ bigger brothers have a fuse in the plug itself. So the only thing protecting the flex to the lamp is the 6A breaker back in the consumer unit. You either need to make sure your lamp flex is safe for 6A or you need to make sure that the sockets are running off a fused spur and that the fuse in that is sufficiently low-rated to protect the flex (a 3A fuse might do).
There’s an even smaller 2A version if you want to run a range of things, each of which can only be plugged into the ‘right’ socket
VB
I had them in my last house, they were quite handy for having something switched at the light switch rather than having to turn them on/off individually. Whether they are useful to you will depend on how much you use smart lighting I guess.
We used them in all the student bedrooms for lights
All wrong - It’s a bowling ball hold technique plaque. Experts wet their fingers first before perfecting their killer grip.
That’s adequate, rest of the world and all that👌
There was an annoying audiophool fetish for 15A round-pin plugs on hifi equipment a while back - because 15 is a bigger-number than 13 so it Must be better, and 'cos No Fuse reasons
I had a few silly cunts over the years ask me to supply Wychwood filters with 15A sockets and/or plugs - including the late Paul Messybugger - politely invited them all to fornicate elsewhere…
.
…which is one of many reasons why I no longer have a business.
Is he late ? If so then I’d missed that. He had an article in Plus at the end of last year
VB
My bad - just smells that way.