708.55.1.1 .............in the 18th Edition

[Tony S]

I know of the connectors fitted at fire stations. One of the lads I trained up to industrial work had previously fitted them to the local fire station. Pity the connector jambed and the engine set off down the road with 20 yards of conduit in tow.

 

[Phoenix]

My lad used to work for the Asda home delivery service, they used to get at least a couple of plugs ripped off the vans each week, and that was just at his depot (the vans have a 240v hookup for the freezer) I told him about the ones we had at the fire station, most of them drop out when you start the engine, personally I don't know why these, 'auto eject' type aren't made mandatory on any vehicle that has mains electricity connected to it.

Not sure you need that level of complexness for an Asda truck, all you need is for engine starting to be inhibited when connected, a microswitch operated when the plug is inserted wired to lock out the imboliser.... granted you wouldn't want that on a fire truck or ambulance, so auto eject for there, they are quite expensive I can remember.

In these parts there is a road sfaety partnership which seems to be something to do with the local police, they have an exhibition vehicle which folds out into a stand, etc. The hookup on that is auto-eject. Now in early December there is a Christmas market here, over a weekend from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon (Which of late the local coucil manage to make a mess of organising these days!), anyway a lot of the roads in the old part of town are closed and getting round is a nightmare, Road safety trailer was up there one year and found they were having trouble with connecting a feed through the hookup when they set up on the friday evening , they could run using the on board gen-set, but couldn't get anything when the changeover switch was  operated to use the hookup. Was sent to have a look, thought I would be in for parking miles away and lugging the toolbox in, but no, got to the roadblock, explained what I was there for and had a marshell ushering people out the way so I could drive right in .I seem to remember the live had burnt out in the auto eject socket and typically because it was tucked underneath the back I ended up layed on my back on the old grass in december trying to do a temporary repair! Got them back on, the ex copper running the thing made me a coffee and while drinking that saw the whole market black out for about 30seconds, a lot of the town did, HV fault, restored by auto-recloser, etc. One of the local schools found out the science block had no emergecny lighting, the cleaners were not impressed at being suddenly in pitch darkness!

 

[phil d]

Not sure you need that level of complexness for an Asda truck, all you need is for engine starting to be inhibited when connected, a microswitch operated when the plug is inserted wired to lock out the imboliser.... granted you wouldn't want that on a fire truck or ambulance, so auto eject for there, they are quite expensive I can remember.

In these parts there is a road sfaety partnership which seems to be something to do with the local police, they have an exhibition vehicle which folds out into a stand, etc. The hookup on that is auto-eject. Now in early December there is a Christmas market here, over a weekend from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon (Which of late the local coucil manage to make a mess of organising these days!), anyway a lot of the roads in the old part of town are closed and getting round is a nightmare, Road safety trailer was up there one year and found they were having trouble with connecting a feed through the hookup when they set up on the friday evening , they could run using the on board gen-set, but couldn't get anything when the changeover switch was  operated to use the hookup. Was sent to have a look, thought I would be in for parking miles away and lugging the toolbox in, but no, got to the roadblock, explained what I was there for and had a marshell ushering people out the way so I could drive right in .I seem to remember the live had burnt out in the auto eject socket and typically because it was tucked underneath the back I ended up layed on my back on the old grass in december trying to do a temporary repair! Got them back on, the ex copper running the thing made me a coffee and while drinking that saw the whole market black out for about 30seconds, a lot of the town did, HV fault, restored by auto-recloser, etc. One of the local schools found out the science block had no emergecny lighting, the cleaners were not impressed at being suddenly in pitch darkness!

There'd be a number of ways of doing it, a relay connected to the 240 supply to inhibit starting would do, and wouldn't cost too much in the grand scheme of things. The cost of repairs was getting silly, not to mention downtime on vehicles, they even started wrapping the cable around the drivers side mirror, you had to move it to get in, the thinking being that you'd remember to unplug it, but oh no, you still had people removing it from the mirror, getting in and driving off with it still plugged in! I guess you just can't help some people. 

 

[Andy™]

There'd be a number of ways of doing it, a relay connected to the 240 supply to inhibit starting would do, and wouldn't cost too much in the grand scheme of things. The cost of repairs was getting silly, not to mention downtime on vehicles, they even started wrapping the cable around the drivers side mirror, you had to move it to get in, the thinking being that you'd remember to unplug it, but oh no, you still had people removing it from the mirror, getting in and driving off with it still plugged in! I guess you just can't help some people. 

start charging them for repairs. they'd soon remember to unlug it

 

[phil d]

start charging them for repairs. they'd soon remember to unlug it

That's what I'd have done, we had lads at one firm used to abuse equipment until it broke, it was costing the firm a fortune, burning out drills was a favourite. When they made me a manager the first thing I did was to recall all the drills and issue each lad with a new one, it cost about £600 to do it, they were all marked up and they were told that they were not to lend them to each other and also that if it broke it would be looked at, genuine failures repaired FOC, but repairs due to abuse would be charged to them, it worked a treat. I went from getting one machine back a week to less than one every 3 months. The trouble with a lot of people is if it isn't theirs they don't look after it.

 

[Andy™]

That's what I'd have done, we had lads at one firm used to abuse equipment until it broke, it was costing the firm a fortune, burning out drills was a favourite. When they made me a manager the first thing I did was to recall all the drills and issue each lad with a new one, it cost about £600 to do it, they were all marked up and they were told that they were not to lend them to each other and also that if it broke it would be looked at, genuine failures repaired FOC, but repairs due to abuse would be charged to them, it worked a treat. I went from getting one machine back a week to less than one every 3 months. The trouble with a lot of people is if it isn't theirs they don't look after it.

seen similar before. cordless drill in a cabinet. just go take whatever you needed. always getting broke (but put back broke, no one did it). then they assigned a drill to each person, suddenly not getting broke