Can anyone identify this connector?

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R-evans said:
It's a work laptop from a previous job so can't really ask them to fork out, she's a scientist so even though no longer working for them she still does some collaboration with them so they let her hold on to the laptop.

I don't understand why I have to get into this level of detail, do you not think we'd have thought of that?



Thanks, but it is a safe charger that wasn't really that cheap considering, I take safety seriously and never would have bought it if I thought it was a hazard. I was hoping to find an official plug to replace it with.

Always boggles me how you ask a simple question on the Internet looking for a simple answer and people start lecturing you about trying to be a better person and that you have to explain to your wife, who has a PhD, about fire safety. Guess I shouldn't be surprised.
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If you provided all the facts, then I would not have suggested it. There's no need to get stroppy :)
 
dLockers said:
The photos you shared could have happened 30 seconds after the PAT tester left
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They didn't though, but you already know this. The point is that you'll never eliminate cowboys or cheap-asses, but by carrying out regular inspections you can prevent equipment getting to this state in the first place, and that's what it's all about. If you think that this is one year worth of damage, across all those devices, then you'd be sorely mistaken.

The fact that you aren't aware of the risks of dodgy electrical equipment tells me that either you work from home, or your company is on-point with their safety checks.

It's one of those things you don't appreciate until you experience the consequences first hand. Like seeing a colleague fighting for life in hospital after getting zapped ;)
 
Buy a cable extension, preferably one with only one socket outlet. Push the broken pin into the earth of the extension socket, then push the broken plug into there.

As the earth pin is plastic it means the unit doesn't need an earth, so no harm done.
 
Diddums said:
They didn't though, but you already know this. The point is that you'll never eliminate cowboys or cheap-asses, but by carrying out regular inspections you can prevent equipment getting to this state in the first place, and that's what it's all about. If you think that this is one year worth of damage, across all those devices, then you'd be sorely mistaken.

The fact that you aren't aware of the risks of dodgy electrical equipment tells me that either you work from home, or your company is on-point with their safety checks.

It's one of those things you don't appreciate until you experience the consequences first hand. Like seeing a colleague fighting for life in hospital after getting zapped ;)
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But we can agree it almost certainly happened between time the PAT tester left and the time the new PAT tester arrived. Unless regular means more than once a year, it still means quite a distance between checks. I am agreeing electrical safety is important, what I am pointing out is that PAT testing is an ineffective way to intervene.

The fact you are even highlighting that quality varies between PAT testers is also very worrying!
 
dLockers said:
But we can agree it almost certainly happened between time the PAT tester left and the time the new PAT tester arrived. Unless regular means more than once a year, it still means quite a distance between checks. I am agreeing electrical safety is important, what I am pointing out is that PAT testing is an ineffective way to intervene.

The fact you are even highlighting that quality varies between PAT testers is also very worrying!
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You don't know the half of it, some of the stories I could tell you are shocking (no pun intended!).

A great example is a plant room with about 24 pumps in it. Not small pumps either, the kind of pumps that get put in with cranes and would flatten a Transit if you tried to load them in one. All three phase obviously, and most of their breakers in the panels don't match up. So you want to service pump x, you go and turn off breaker x and lock it off. You then remove the covers on the terminals on the pump and it's still live.

That kind of jolt will very easily kill someone.

The thing is, that's most certainly not one year worth of damage on those extension leads. I know this because I've been doing this for far too long and do quite a bit of PAT testing myself now and then. Pat testing isn't even a legal requirement, it's merely proof that the equipment is being checked, which is a legal requirement (it's complicated). Those leads were hidden under desks and the worst one as you can see is cable-tied to the bottom of a reception desk so largely goes unseen, yet these were signed off on the register as passed. No stickers, not even checked, just signed off as passed so it would pass an audit. If a receptionist felt under the desk to plug something in and got a zap, it could seriously injure her and trigger a huge investigation.
 
Diddums said:
A great example is a plant room with about 24 pumps in it. Not small pumps either, the kind of pumps that get put in with cranes and would flatten a Transit if you tried to load them in one. All three phase obviously, and most of their breakers in the panels don't match up. So you want to service pump x, you go and turn off breaker x and lock it off. You then remove the covers on the terminals on the pump and it's still live.
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That's ridiculous, doesn't that get rectified when it's discovered i.e. circuit charts replaced etc.?
 
R-evans said:
A) She has an official charger, but it was accidentally packed into a box of our stuff when we moved home from the US, which is kindly being stored for us by a friend over there. We have no idea which box, so we don't want them to have to search through several boxes to find it and then have to go to the post office to post it during a global pandemic.

B) I purchased the laptop charger as I know a bit more about chargers than she does. I then asked on a computer forum I am signed up to about chargers because she isn't signed up to any computer forums.

This really isn't that difficult to fathom.
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My comment was meant in jest, hence the :p

In all seriousness, I’d just invest in an official charger, you’ll be chasing your tail trying to find replacements for cheap chargers that keep breaking.
 
Dirk Diggler said:
That's ridiculous, doesn't that get rectified when it's discovered i.e. circuit charts replaced etc.?
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We do, but it's not that simple sadly. The breakers are labelled according to the spec of the building which is all we have to go on, so every fix requires tracing the cables.

Adam_151 said:
No local isolators next to the pumps?
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There are, but for maximum safety we isolate at all points.
 
Megahurtz400 said:
My comment was meant in jest, hence the :p

In all seriousness, I’d just invest in an official charger, you’ll be chasing your tail trying to find replacements for cheap chargers that keep breaking.
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We have an official charger, just not in this country. This has been fine for over a year so as long as I can make do for a few more months (hopefully) we can go get the other one.
 
dLockers said:
Yeah PAT testing is super effective for the five minutes just before the PAT tester leaves the business :rolleyes:

Misleading photos of damaged plugs with PAT stickers on. Clearly not signed off when they were in that state.

Education is the big problem here not a point in time inspection.
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The trouble with pat testing is it's very much a race to the bottom. Most companies just want it done as cheaply as possible. You end up with lots of companies expecting their employees to do over 200 tests a day. So it's not uncommon for them to cut corners.
 
I feel like the time and effort you've spent trying to sort this just isn't worth saving £25 quid for another cheap Amazon charger surely?
 
Megahurtz400 said:
I feel like the time and effort you've spent trying to sort this just isn't worth saving £25 quid for another cheap Amazon charger surely?
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What time and effort? Typing a few messages on a forum while I'm in quarantine?

The problem is sorted and it cost me £1.19. It wasn't just about saving money, it was about the fact that I have a charger here that works absolutely fine but the UK plug connector was unusable.

So I should have just wasted £45 and sent this one to landfill?
 
Sorry, I thought I'd said.

See below

Jez said:
In all seriousness I am amazed that no one has just suggested the obvious, just use a little 2way plug block on it. Jack open the power pins with it unplugged, connect that broken adapter then use it through that from then on.
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Dirk Diggler said:
Buy a cable extension, preferably one with only one socket outlet. Push the broken pin into the earth of the extension socket, then push the broken plug into there.

As the earth pin is plastic it means the unit doesn't need an earth, so no harm done.
Click to expand...
 
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